


futures for shadows

by oh_simone



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:16:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9623807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_simone/pseuds/oh_simone
Summary: In the days after Percival wakes up in a Lower East Side tenement, he finds himself dealing with prison breaks, home repairs, and possibly being haunted by the Obscurus of the Barebone boy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Minty who watched the movie solely to feedback this thing.  
> Please note much of this was written on my phone, and I've found that autocorrect can leave sneaky traces... I've gone through and edited, but do let me know if somewhere in the text Percival is still being referred to as 'Poetical'!

_Darkness._

_Moments of gray, foggy confusion and the low insistent stirring of alarm and unease pierced the veil of unconsciousness every age or so, but they were rare and brief, cut short by flurries of movement and a low, silky voice that radiated amusement._

_Darkness, dreamless and oppressively silent._

_But then, a crack in the window. Outside, the rain began to fall. And on the breath of the midnight wind was a curl of blackness, a wisp of thin primordial magic, essentialized in fear, distilled in rage. Most of its energy had been ravaged into nothingness, but magic and desperation was nothing, if not stubborn. This final drift of magic hissed past the radiator, dissipating and reforming in frenetic gusts. With the night breeze as its carrier, it rifled and upset the papers on the desk, tipped a heavy glass tumbler onto the hard wood floor with a splintering crack. It gathered, stormcloud-like, on the bedroom ceiling, thickening in black streams and, very occasionally, glimpses of pale flesh, lit by a bluish glow that was more lightning than moonlight. It raged; the windows rattled, as if in a storm and dust, debris whipped through the air and against the bare walls. But there was nothing and no one to observe the magical tempest; it became thin and strand-like once more, less and less substantive. Slowly, it descended in tentative drifts from the ceiling, trailing a faint smell of ozone as it approached the bed. One final black wisp trailed like lingering cigarette-smoke across the cold, dreamless features of the sleeper. And then, it was gone._

_The darkness began to recede._

 

The office door was closed. It had been since lunch, and a quick glance at the clock showed it was well past seven. Most of the Aurors had cleared out for the day; only Reggie Caetano, deputy director of magical security, and Tanaquil McArthur were in the bullpen, and that was only because they had the night shift. They nodded at Tina amiably as she passed their desks, and didn’t stop her as she strode up to the closed door and knocked.

A beat, and then, “Enter.”

Inside the director of magical security’s office was a large, floor to ceiling bookcase neatly lined with magical artifacts and old, leather bound books and folders. Each contained the written memoirs and case notes of every previous director, record upon record of cases and meticulous notes about New York and the MACUSA, stretching back to the first settlements of Jamestown. They shared their space with treatises and journals on forensic sciences, magical and No-Maj—the papers of Edmund Locard and his forensic laboratory were wedged between something ancient with worn away Arabic in gold lettering and the most recent volume of the Journal of Magical Criminology.

A massive oak desk before the bookshelf nearly matched its entire length. Its size was not so much for vanity as it was sheer utility. Every inch of it was covered, everything painstakingly organized into towering piles—reports for signing, cases for filing, backlogged request forms, letters to be answered.  Quills and seals for official paperwork, fountain ink pens for the rest. A golden clock with a whirling face chimed softly at the top of the desk, trying to draw attention to the next item on its schedule. Its owner was nevertheless, steadily ignoring it in favor of writing furiously in the margins of a printed report.

“Yes, Goldstein,” Percival Graves said, without looking up. Under his pen bloomed a curt rejoinder to the Secretary of Magical Labor’s suggestion.

Auror Porpentina Goldstein stood stiffly in the door way. “The reports that you asked for, sir,” she said.

He gestured to a thick, neat stack of similar folders and continued frowning down at the report in his hand. Tina carefully stacked her reports in the pile, but hesitated to leave. He gave no indication that he noticed or cared. She forged ahead.

“I didn’t see you take lunch, sir. There’s still some sandwiches in the pantry, I can grab you one if you’d like?”

Graves grunted.

She tried again.

“It's almost eight. “

“Yes, goodnight, Goldstein,” he said absently, turning a page.

Tina hovered at the door. “Sir, I think you should head out as well.”

Graves did look up then, the yellow lamp light throwing shadows into the sunken hollows of his face. Barely a month ago, Aurors had responded to an emergency signal that had gone off in the Lower East Side and recovered him from an airless tenement room off of Orchard Street; he’d been delirious, severely malnourished and dehydrated, and barely in the frame of mind to cast the alert wandlessly. His recovery so far was remarkably swift, all things considered, but the signs of his captivity were still painfully obvious, from his shorn head to the looseness of his suit. Still, the sharp gleam of haughty scorn in his eyes had not changed.

“Are you my doctor, Goldstein?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Tina said.

“And neither are you my mother,” he said. “I rarely listen to either of them, so what on earth makes you think I’d listen to you?”

Her face went pale, then very red, and Graves almost wished she would say whatever she was biting back—the entire office had been walking on eggshells around him since his return which was _maddening_ —but then visibly swallowed her response. She muttered a farewell before ducking out of the office with alacrity.

Percival sighed, though the frustration was mostly self-directed.  He tossed the report into his finished pile and pushed at his aching temples. There was some reason, he thought with bitter humor, that Grindelwald’s deception went unknown for so long; the real Percival Graves’s personality was not much more pleasant than the imposter’s. Goldstein also had the right of it, much to his wry dismay. As soon as he dropped his pen in its stand, his stomach made an unholy noise and an insistent throbbing at the base of his skull immediately made itself known. He felt like he could demolish an entire porterhouse steak, but since his rescue, had had trouble keeping down anything but the lightest and blandest of fares. Even Goldstein’s proffered sandwich would likely have been too rich a meal.

Outside a light, late-season snowfall had started. Percival stood up and hauled the window up a few inches, then patted inside his jacket for his cigarette case. There was time, perhaps, for a quick Apparition down the street, where Rolando’s kept a pot of stew going late into the night for the No-Maj beat cops. He lit the cigarette and smoked silently. The brisk air wicked the heat and smoke from the office, but he barely felt it. Without another report in his hands to distract him, his mind spun itself in frustrating, endless circles. The unbearable mental itch of having perhaps forgotten something important chased around the fact that he’d lost five months of his life to some European madman with none of his peers the wiser. And the irritating strangeness of returning to a life that had been occupied by someone else for months—the way people stared at him, as if he was a stranger, or worse yet, pitiful. The way nearly every conversation now must be awkwardly contextualized for every meeting he’d missed. Even the trail of cigarette smoke, streaming silently out the window prickled his mind somehow, though he couldn’t possibly know why.

Percival snubbed the cigarette out on the ledge abruptly, and closed the window. He turned back into his office, heading for his greatcoat and scarf that hung next to the door, and didn’t notice the lines of his shadow stretching just outside the lines of ordinary.

 

The Graves ancestral home was an Unplottable sprawling estate near Tarrytown in Westchester county, but it had been boarded up for ages. Instead, most of Percival’s formative years were spent in Manhattan at his mother’s townhouse on 70th Street and 5th-ish Avenue. Like the No-Majes who lived to the west along Central Park, the wizard families residing on 5th-ish Ave were of the society sort, by and large. His neighbors, in fact, were Carnegie cousins. He still lived in the townhouse alone, his parents having passed nearly a decade ago now, his sisters married and dispersed across the United States. They’d had a housekeeper when he and his sisters were still young, but that was long in the past. These days, Percival had the old house elf Tyrol come around once a week to clean the place and to prepare a week’s worth of meals, but he was generally gone by the time Percival returned home.

The fireplace was cold so Percival drew some warming charms around him as he entered. There was half a roast chicken in the icebox, but despite his hunger, he only managed a few bites before he put it back under its preserving spell. He ended his night where he spent most of his time—his father’s old office, a bottle of imported Firewhiskey at his left hand and more files from his missing time. It was troubling to read these old reports, completed by Grindelwald, yet written in Percival’s own hand and with his turns of phrases. Most unsettling of all, Percival found himself in agreement with Grindelwald’s final verdict with many of the cases. The wizard’s intellect was well known all over, but this particular aspect of it, its uncanny ability to perform Percival’s highly specialized job down to its gritty and dull details was… deeply, deeply upsetting. He made good use of the Firewhiskey for the rest of his waking hours, and allowed it to tip him into uneasy slumber well after midnight.

 

_He dreamed that the boy found him. Not that he knew exactly who the boy was, or that he was even being looked for in the first place. In dreams, logic twisted differently; Percival was not agitated by the blurred edges of the ruined city around him, nor by the thin, sallow-faced figure who couldn’t quite seem to hold a solid shape—his skin cracked and sealed itself constantly, while black smoke pulsed from these fissures. The boy’s face was turned from him, his shoulders hunched and his fists clenched at his side._

_Percival stepped forward, but the distance between them stayed the same. “Who are you?” he called._

_The figure jerked; his body dissolved into boiling black clouds and flashes of lightning. It raced towards him, tearing across the distance with terrifying speed. Percival’s dream feet refused to lift; as the raging black storm bore down on him, he tilted his head back and closed his eyes._

 

“Sir, there’s been a break-in at the comptroller’s office,” Goldstein told him as he entered the bullpen. She was perhaps the only one of his team who seemed to be more comfortable approaching him _now_ than before. He motioned for her to go on and she matched his stride, briefing him with the details. “I’d like to go onsite and take witness statements from his secretary.”

“The secretary?” Percival asked as he unlocked his office door and set his hat on top of the coat rack.

“Yes, sir. He was the first to find Mr. O’Connell at the office, and called it in. He administered basic first aid, but O’Connell’s being taken to Bellevue Mage Hospital.”

Percival glanced at the stack of paperwork that had only increased in the few hours he’d been absent, then over at the pale, determined face of his brightest Auror. He took his hat up again.

“I’ll come with you,” he said.

Goldstein looked wary, but fell into step easily enough as they headed out of the Woolworth Building. The New York City comptroller’s office was just across City Hall Park in the massive Municipal Building; its magical counterpart extended below. Though it was connected through an underground pass to the Woolworth, it was usually faster and a nicer over ground walk. As they strode through the park, Goldstein continued to fill him in on the details. Percival didn’t say much, except to ask one or two clarifying questions. This was not the usual way of doing things—as Director of Magical Security and head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Percival really wasn’t supposed to be doing the legwork, but he had been feeling restless and irritable this whole week and was glad for the chance to get out from behind the desk.

They bypassed the barrel-vaulted passageway for a roped-off subway entrance to the right of the Municipal building and walked right through the ‘Closed’ sign down into the MACUSA’s New York City Hall. In the lobby, they took the elevators to the fourth basement level, where they were met by the city comptroller’s secretary, a sharpish, competent goblin who looked ready to murder whoever had broken in.

“It’s the end of the fiscal year,” he seethed as Goldstein jotted down her notes and Percival surveyed the crime scene. “Do you know how many audits we have to get through to make sure the Sixth Borough stays afloat every year?”

“I understand your frustration, Mr. Finney,” Goldstein said. “we’ll do all we can. Can you write down anything that is missing?”

“Goldstein,” Percival called from the brick lintel over Mr. O’Connell’s fireplace.  “Your strongest _lumos nero_ please.”

“Yes, sir.” She came and stood beside him with her wand raised. Together they swept their wands out, the tips casting a blueish glow over the walls and floors of the office.  Under the light, the grout between the fireplaces brickwork glowed—as did a set of half-formed footprints that seemed to leading a direct path straight through the door.

“With me,” Percival said, and swept after the footsteps.

 

They followed the trail out into the corridors of mage city hall, past accounting offices full of clicking machines streaming out ticker tape and past the offices of municipal transportation, where Floo powder was being measured in 100 gram portions and sealed for distribution. Though they were underground, the exits were clearly labeled with the surface streets, and looking ahead, Percival had an inkling as to where the footsteps were headed.

“Take the next exit and stake the southeast entrance. If you can, block off the pedestrian walkway to the bridge,” he told Goldstein, who immediately peeled off for the next bank of elevators. Mr. Finney, to Percival’s mild irritation, kept pace with him.

He and Finney came rushing up the gilt-edged steps to the central hall of the magical customs hall and nearly lost sight of the prints when a worker nearly ran them over with a massive floating flat of Gigglewater.

“Watch it, pal,” the worker said, outraged.

“Burn in hell,” Finney snarled, which was entertaining in hindsight, but in the moment only served to alert the long-legged, ash blond man at the end of the foot trail. He had been leaning against the marble counter at the information stand, chatting up the receptionist but at the ruckus he’d swung his head around and spotted them. Behind Percival, Finney made an enraged noise.

“Marlin Montgomery, that- that _snake_ , he’s always had it out for us, ever since we shut down his brother’s side business-”

"Contact Magical Security and tell them all you can about him,” Percival ordered, and took off running. The man—Montgomery— gaped and then scrambled for the doors.

Outside the chill was like a slap in the face, but Percival barely felt it.  Several No-Majes jumped aside in surprise as two men burst out of a seemingly closed up newspaper stand, but at least one had enough sense of mind to shout some filthy expletive as Montgomery shoved him roughly. Percival dodged and bore down on the man. His lungs ached with the chill and exertion, but if he didn’t push himself, he’d end up chasing this man clear over to Brooklyn.

Montgomery leaped over the street divider and nearly into the grill of an oncoming car. Percival followed, grimly ignoring the screaming ache in his—entire body. His wand wasn’t out yet, but was poised to drop from its sleeve holster at a moment’s notice. The No-Maj pedestrians cried in alarm as the two of them cleared a path straight through the crowd, and in another few moments, they were racing onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

The wind whipped fierce up on the bridge, and Percival’s vision was beginning to waver. The bridge had cleared of No-Majes thanks to two large blockades that he dodged past. They had clearly been transfigured from hitching posts; fast thinking on Goldstein's part, who was probably off securing other exits. He just hoped she looped back around soon to play backup. His wand slipped into his hand, and he lashed out a quick _Impedimento_. Montgomery cried out in surprise and stumbled, giving Percival enough time to swiftly descend on him.

“No!” Montgomery shouted, and twisted around, wand clenched in his fist. “ _Expulso_!”

Percival automatically swung up with a shield charm, but it was a poor effort, and he grit his teeth as the reverb from the impact seemed to shake his very bones. Five months lying in a near coma, and his body had been more or less emaciated by the time Aurors found him. In the weeks since then, the potions and spells the doctors tried could only do so much—time and only time, Dr. Wing had told him sternly, could finish the healing. He’d then instructed Percival to leave the fieldwork to his Aurors as much as possible. So much for that, he thought, as he countered a blinding hex, then a nasty concussive curse that he managed to direct down to the water below.

“Drop your wand, now!” Percival shouted over the wind and traffic below. “You don’t want to do this.” He hoped he sounded more threatening than he felt. Nausea roiled and seized at his throat and he was fighting just to stand firm.

“I don’t think so,” Montgomery replied. He parried back Percival’s _Petrificus_ with a careless wave of his hand, and yelped when hail began beating down on from above. Percival clenched his jaw and directed the _Cumulonimbello_ cloud lower.

“Montgomery,” he shouted, “You are under arrest for the-”

Percival’s arms shook and the cloud slipped, and Montgomery had never let go of his wand.

“ _Disintegra_!”

The arc of spellcast cracked across the distance and Percival, caught mid-cast and blinking away black spots, could do nothing but raise his forearm across his face—

Something roared past his ears.

The air was sucked out of Percival’s lungs as thick, black darkness engulfed his world, at once liquid and storm-like. It was so sudden that his mind went white and soundless with the shock of it, his breath strangling itself in his throat. His legs felt like they might have given out, except—whatever it was, was streaming past him with enough force and wind to keep him upright. Nothing, nothing in his life had ever felt like this; it was like standing against the concentrated force of a hurricane, lashed by an unknown force that that bubbled and snarled and thundered its rage that shook his bones.  Pain rasped across his uncovered skin like hundreds of razors eager for blood. He may have cried out, airlessly and silently, but whatever it was, its pressure against his lungs, his skin, his senses, was unrelenting.

With a gasp, Percival was standing in daylight again, and the black—whatever it was, it had gone. The absence of noise was so profound that he thought he’d gone deaf, until the sounds of ordinary No-Maj traffic below filtered back through. Across from him, Montgomery was slumped on the wooden floor. With a great effort to wrench his focus back to the present, Percival pushed his aching muscles to move across the distance and drop down next to his suspect. The man was bleeding from a large gash on his temple and was out cold, but was otherwise alive. Percival swallowed and struggled back to his feet, feeling distinctly unsteady.

“Director…” someone whispered, and he turned to meet the eyes of Goldstein who was watching him with wide, round eyes. Percival faced forward again and took a deep, steadying breath.

“ _Carpe arresto_ ,” he said, and rope shot from his wand tip to bind around Montgomery’s wrists. Percival’s lungs still burned and his guts yet churned; the wind and sunlight stabbed at his aching head, but he managed to haul the suspect upright and throw him at Goldstein.

“Book him,” he growled, and staggered off to find a drink. His skin prickled with the ghostly feel of knives, but when he checked his hands, there was nothing to see but pale, dry, unmarked skin.

 

“Sir, can I speak with you?” Goldstein asked as she fell in step with him as he left the building.

“Goldstein,” he said, and he didn’t mean to sound so tired, but she immediately looked contrite.

“I’m sorry, sir, I know you must be exhausted, and I don’t want to bother you any more than absolutely necessary, but Director Graves,” she lunged forward, blocking his path. “This is… this is important.”

He looked at her for a long time, and despite his urge to shout her down to wand permits again, took in her pale face, clear, serious eyes, and set shoulders.

With a silent grimace, he made a motion for her to continue and a look of relief flashed across her expression.

After another apprehensive silence, she sighed shortly. “Director, I read your report on your captivity,” she said, and continued on quickly when he frowned and opened his mouth to reply. “No- I wasn’t supposed to, I know, but that was my case, sir, the- the Obscurial incident.” Her mouth twisted on the words.

He stayed coldly silent, and she rushed ahead nervously. “You wrote that, right before you woke up, you heard thunder and smelled ozone. But there was no storm that day, only light rain.”

“Goldstein, I was coming out of a sleeping curse,” he said. “I highly doubt I was the best judge of my surroundings.”

“Yes, of course, but there are similarities, enough that I just… think it’s a reasonable conclusion that…” she trailed off, working her jaw.

He looked at her without speaking.

“Director Graves,” Goldstein said, “If- if what happened today... I think it was the same thing that woke you up.”

“…And you think you know what that was,” he stated quietly.

She swallowed and stared out into the street. “’Who’, sir. I think I know who that was.”

Of course, he’d read up on the Obscurial incident. A poor, abused Second Salemer boy who Grindelwald had manipulated into knots with false hopes and promises implodes into a rage-fueled force of magic that rampaged across Manhattan and destroyed roughly a third of downtown. Percival had pulled all the reports while still on medical leave and read through them meticulously, then polished off half a bottle of whiskey and went through them again. The entire affair had been—‘ghastly’ was all he could think of at the time, but in the end, Percival directed most of his attention onto Grindelwald, who was sitting pretty in Irongate Prison on Wards Island, for now, at least.

As for the boy, he had all but gone up in smoke. Or so witnesses had believed.

Percival watched her silently. He recalled, vaguely, the reason for Goldstein’s demotion had also concerned the boy. It was beginning to seem like this Credence Barebone was determined to be an ongoing headache in his life.

“Tomorrow, my office, nine-thirty,” he said. “Keep this quiet.”

 

A decent age ago, when the No Majes were deep in the horrors of the Great War, Seraphina Picquery had made a name for herself in the Covert Wizarding Forces in Europe, fighting against Grindelwald and aiding the No-Maj efforts where she could. Even then, fresh out of Ilvemorny, she had not been a witch to take lightly. Her uncanny knack for rescuing unsalvageable situations had grown along with her formidable reputation, tempered and sharpened in war. Graves had been a fellow soldier then, stuck in the same horror of war-torn continental Europe, watching their leads and advantage over Grindelwald slip away day by day while the No-Maj troops drowned in the stinking trenches all around. He remembered asking her how she did it, how she was able to make sense of the impossible gibberish and chaos all around them and somehow squeeze any result out at all, much less successful ones.

Picquery had looked at him with her calm, unshakeable stare, and simply said, “Timing is everything.”

Graves was reminded of this when he entered his office in the morning and found the president of the MACUSA sitting behind his desk and perusing his morning edition of _The_ _Ghost_.

“Good morning, Madam President,” Graves said evenly. It did no good to show nerves; she was shark-like in her ability to find weakness. “Good news, I hope.”

“It depends,” she said, and laid the paper down. “on what you consider news. For instance, the papers make no mention of my Director of Magical Security engaged in a duel on the Brooklyn Bridge in broad daylight. That is good news as far as I am concerned. The fact that I only heard of this news when Mr. O’Connell of the comptroller’s office called me from Bellevue Mage to express his fervent gratitude in catching the culprit, well.” She gave him a pointed, very displeased look.

Percival sighed and took a seat in his own visitor’s chair with ill grace. “You would have received the final write up today, after I’d signed off on the report.”

Her expression was less than impressed. “I expect any city surface incidents of that level to be reported to me as soon as they happen. That does not mean sit on it until it suits you, Director Graves.”

He gestured at the tower of paperwork. “I am doing my best, Madame President.” He didn't mean to use such a clipped tone, but her eyes narrowed anyways.

“Director,” she said, “We have always worked well together. I have always allowed you the liberty you require for the position, and have taken you and your department at your word, because I trust you. I trust _you,_ understand me?” She stood up, and Percival resisted the urge to leap to his feet. “However, it was _not you_ that ran roughshod over this city and our institution so very recently. Which leads me to reevaluate the working relationship we have established, and the necessary changes we must affect in order to ensure what happened to do you does not happen again.” Her gaze softened slightly. “What Grindelwald did to you is horrifying, Percival, and I stand behind you completely and without question. But there are those in Congress who prefer we tighten the reins on Magical Security, and yes, some do prefer we provide you with a very generous severance package and sent you on your way. I fought them back on that, but I cannot hold them off on my own. You must work with me, Percival.”

There had been a time, not too long in the past, when it was Seraphina Picquery and her right-hand man Graves making the American wizarding world safer for all-- now, there was a wary edge to the way she regarded him, an aloofness that reflected the broken trust Grindelwald had left in his wake. Unfair, perhaps, but Percival found he could not blame her; her trust had been severely tested.

“I appreciate your support, Madame President,” he said. “And I fully understand. Thank you.” What else could be said? His hands clenched the arms of his chair before he deliberately loosed his fingers.

“Well, see, that only sounded a little bit like I was pulling your teeth,” she said lightly.

A knock sounded then, and after a beat, Goldstein opened the door.

“Sir,” she said, “It’s nine—oh, Madame President.” Goldstein halted mid-step and hovered, awkward and uncertain over the threshold. Picquery’s expression cooled.

“Five minutes,” Percival said without turning around. Goldstein flushed and withdrew hastily.

“I should have known,” Picquery said. “Goldstein was your accomplice on the Montgomery arrest, wasn’t she?”

“She picked up the case, yes.”

“Trouble follows that one like a magnet,” she sighed. “I should send her back down to Wands.”

“Don’t you dare,” he said, surprised to find he meant it. “She’s the most promising of the lot in this department. Why do you think _he_ suggested it in the first place?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, but he had known her far too long to be intimidated. Finally, she came around the table, and he stood as well.

“Very well, I’ll not antagonize you any more today. I look forward to your final report,” she said with a hint of amusement.

“Of course,” he said, opening the door for her.

“Good day, Director.”

“Madame President,” he said, and once she’d swept off down the hall, he crooked his finger at Goldstein who had been hovering next to Caetano’s desk.  

“How are you feeling?” she asked after the door closed. He directed a flat look her way and took a seat behind his desk. He would rather cut his own tongue out than admit that he’d nearly fallen asleep and drowned in his bath last night as he was soaking out his aching body with Salvatore’s Salubrious Spelled Salts and Firewhiskey. Luckily one of the lights in the ceiling had popped and gone dark just as he’d nodded off. He’d spent the rest of his waking hours searching for a replacement bulb and renewing the electricity charms in the bathroom.

“I’ve read Scamander’s report on the Obscurial,” he replied instead, thinking with distaste on the incoherent case notes provided by the other British lunatic who had nearly destroyed Manhattan. It read more like a magizoology research monograph than an incident report. “It is frustratingly imprecise and ambiguous about what exactly is their nature. Even if this Obscurial managed to somehow survive and attach itself to… a living body, we still have no idea what we’re dealing with.”

“Credence,” Goldstein corrected, quietly but firmly. “His name is Credence.”

Percival inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Yes. Barebone.”

“It was terrible circumstances for him, sir,” she said. “But he was… perhaps is… powerful. And if an Obscurus is pure magical energy, then energy can gather as well as dissipate.”

“So somehow, if he escaped death as you theorize,” Percy motioned to her before tucking his hand back under his chin. “He is… waiting for what, exactly? As an Obscurus, he’s a parasite.”

“But that wouldn’t make sense,” she said. “Your magic hasn’t been affected, at least not that we’ve seen. That wouldn’t be the reason he’s… following you. And, he’s not a- well, he’s never been physically violent. In every incident, the retaliatory attacks had always been immediately or within ten hours of the provocation. And that was when he still had a human form. But even yesterday, sir. The attack didn’t come until, well.”

Percival raised an eyebrow. “Until?”

“Until you were in danger, sir,” Goldstein said.

“And that’s another thing I don’t understand,” Percival said. “You think he’s specifically haunting me. Why not you, or Mr. Scamander, or Grindelwald? Besides my appearance, I have no connection to this boy. I’ve never even spoken to him.”

“I- I can’t say,” Goldstein said. “But it may be that his Obscurus form can’t tell the difference, or… there is some side effect of Grindelwald’s spell.”

He leaned back into his chair. “The spell.”

“He didn’t use Polyjuice, he used a-”

“Some sort of mind transference, in conjunction with a sleeping curse,” he murmured.

“Exactly. I’m not certain how he worked the spells, but I think it’s part of what made his disguise so effective—he was drawing directly from you, your appearance, your speech pattern and mannerisms, even your thought patterns. All he had to do was keep your real body silent and unmoving, refresh the spell every so often, and he could ape you for as long as he wanted.” Her eyes were dark and intent. “At least on the surface, the two of you were the same.”

“Even if he could have found Grindelwald on Wards,” Percival said, thinking aloud, “He never would have recognized his magical signature.”

“Exactly so. That’s the theory, anyhow. The Magical Forensic Unit is still trying to piece together the whole spell.”

“So this Barebone could be here,” Percival said, “in this very office. Waiting to… revenge himself on me?”

“I’m not sure how much of a consciousness remains with an Obscurial in Obscurus form,” she said. “Really, sir, New- Mr. Scamander, he’s much more well-read on this subject. He’s dealt with… others.”

Percival digested the last few minutes of conversation in silence. The thought that some wisp of chaotic, unpredictable, possibly parasitic magic was trailing him in a case of mistaken identity was worrying, and not a bit unnerving. While he was willing to accept that Goldstein didn’t think Barebone was inherently violent, one did not need to be violent by nature to be dangerous. He had also caught the slight pause in Goldstein’s mention of Scamander’s name, and there was no way he would condone that man’s return to New York in the near future.

“Wire him,” he told her. “But let that be the extent of it.”

She gave him a reproachful look.

He refused to bend. “If it proves necessary, I will arrange for an international Floo Call.” And perhaps an exorcist as well.

“Meanwhile, sir,” she said as she got up to leave. “Maybe you can try… talking to him?”

Percival stared at her blankly.

“I mean Credence,” she explained.

He continued to stare, baffled. “About what?”

Goldstein actually threw her hands up in a half shrug. “Anything, sir. Introduce yourself at least. He’s not a criminal, he’s just… just a boy, who’s been lonely and afraid and in pain for most of his life. If he’s even remotely aware of his surroundings, it might help him… focus a little better.”

“And you think my talking to him will make a difference?” he asked skeptically.

She gave him a long and level stare. “Grindelwald manipulated him ruthlessly using your face,” she said. “If there was anyone who might understand his anger and confusion, sir, I think it’s you.”

 

In the old Graves townhouse, Percival hung up his coat and scarf and thumbed the top buttons of his collar open. Tyrol had been by earlier, so the fireplace was crackling merrily in the parlor and a few dishes were gently steaming on the counter—a deep amber bowl of bone broth, roasted white fish, soft buttered rolls. There was also, discreetly behind the salt shaker, a small unopened bottle of Wing’s Restorative that must have been procured from Chinatown’s sorcerous quarters. _Invalid food_ , Percival thought resentfully, but acknowledged that the old house elf had about the right of it after Percival finished eating and there was still enough left to serve as a hearty snack.

He sorted through the Maj-post in his office—a bill for the Floo service, a letter from his lawyers regarding the actions he’d taken or not in regards to his estate during the last half year, and a postcard from his youngest sister Cordelia, reminding him that she would be in town next month. The last item he stuck to his calendar before turning his mind to the first two. This kept him properly occupied for another hour or so, and the files from the office another two. But then, then the eleventh hour chimed and Percival found his thoughts wandering from Grindelwald’s networks in eastern Canada to the Obscurus possibly haunting him. How odd that Percival wouldn't have noticed anything out of the ordinary; he'd always had a sensitivity to such things, a finely tuned intuition that translated well to Auror work. But if not for the… manifestation on the bridge, he might not have realized anything was amiss. Except… except Percival was undoubtedly compromised in health and well-being, with a slow, if steady, path of recovery before him. He dug his knuckles against his temples and tossed the report away from him.

If Goldstein was right, and there was an Obscurus following him, then what matter of Grindelwald, since an enraged Obscurus would kill him faster than a single incarcerated wizard?

“If you actually are here,” he said aloud, “you might as well show yourself now.”

The room remained empty and silent but for the pop and hiss of the fireplace. No raging black clouds or sad young men twisting out from the shadows. Feeling a little foolish and very tired, Percival finished his drink and headed for bed.

 

_Percival dreamed again, that night, of the thin, hunched man that trailed black smoke in wisps and tendrils._

_“My name is Percival Graves,” Percival said, and his name tolled from his lips like it had been struck from a bronze bell. It swept across the limits of the dream like a wave, weighty and impossible to deny._

_The figure stared back, silent and hollow faced._

_“Are you Credence Barebone?” Percival asked, or tried to. The words dried up in his throat and crumbled into black dust that streamed out of his mouth and nostrils and joined the steadily darkening haze around the figure. The man’s eyes, milky white, were unreadable._

_When Percival awoke, he did not remember any of it._

 

“Oh love, it’s too early for decent folk like us to be up,” his mirror chided sleepily. Percival ignored it and turned the tap for hot water. Outside, the sky was still deep, dark blue, and the old grandfather clock in the hall had only just chimed four. He splashed his face and wiped off with a towel, then stared at his own haggard face. Sleep, good, long, peaceful sleep was a hard chase these days. He thought he might be starting to look rougher now than he did when he was first rescued.

He scrubbed his face and pushed his fingers back over his head. His entire body twinged and creaked in pain as he straightened up. His head had been shaved for one restorative spell or another, and now that the hair was growing back, it was coming in far grayer than before. The bags under his eyes were nearly purple, and they were stark against the too-pale shade of his face. The overall effect was that he looked not unlike the sunken-faced prisoners he dealt with in his work. He was so tired his ears were buzzing, but he hadn’t been able to fall back asleep after waking up from some muddled dark dreams. His medicine cabinet was bare of Pepper-up and Vimigor Tonic, and he closed mirrored door with more force than necessary.

And immediately went rigid when he locked eyes with the figure in the mirror, standing behind him.

There was no one physically present, but when Percival turned back to the mirror, the figure was still there.

Heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his fingertips, Percival clenched his jaw and forced himself to remain calm. The man—boy?—young man was a slight figure, if only because he held himself so, and of the blurred, black edges of his outline. He was all thin, angled edges topped off with straight black hair that was cut bluntly and unflatteringly above his ears. Percival couldn’t recall ever seeing such a sorry looking fellow before.

“Credence Barebone,” he rasped, gaze still fixed on the figure standing behind his shoulder. “That is you, correct?”

Barebone stared back unfathomably. After a long moment, he inclined his head, nodded once. It felt like something shook loose in Percival’s shoulders; so perhaps there was a consciousness attached to… whatever it was. And if Percival could communicate with him, then he could reason with him and they could establish a plan of action.

“Well,” Percival said after a beat. “My name is Percival Graves.”

Barebone mouthed a reply, but Percival heard no sound; he did watch, in horrified fascination as black smoke pushed itself out from between the man’s lips and teeth as he spoke.

“I can’t hear you,” he said, turning around in spite of himself. Nothing behind him, and when he turned back to the mirror, Barebone had gone from the mirror as well. Percival waited another ten minutes, staring intently at the mirror.

“Darling, maybe he’s just not feeling up to it,” his mirror finally said kindly.

Percival pushed himself away and left the washroom, his shadow trailing stickily after him.

 

Scamander had wired back a reply. He had, in fact, sent three separate ones, and Percival suspected the contents would have fair vibrated off the page in excitement if allowed. He read through them as he took his morning coffee—they got a bit into the intellectual weeds, but essentially affirmed that Goldstein’s theory was not impossible, though nothing like this had ever been recorded before. He also suggested Percival remove himself from the city—the urban environment, he wrote, could be a distracting factor for an Obscurus. Worked magic, ambient magic, even plain No-Maj radio waves could all be disruptive. Percival rolled his eyes and dragged his actual work before him.

He was deep in the security proposals for the next Congressional Conference in Delaware when Goldstein knocked and entered. 

“Sir, Jessamyn said there was news…?”

Percival pushed the telegrams across the desk and waved a dismissal. Naturally, she plopped down in his visitor’s chair instead, eyes scanning the missives.

“But this is excellent news,” she said.

“It neither confirms nor denies anything, and while marginally reassuring, doesn’t do much more than prove a distraction. Dismissed.”

She stayed in her seat, but Percival could feel her still watching him.

“Sir…”

“Goldstein, while your tenacity is a fine quality in an Auror, please direct it to your actual work, and allow others to do the same,” he said.

“Sir!”

He finally looked at her sharply, but she wasn’t looking at him. Or not directly—she was looking at his arm.

“Sir, your- your shadow, it’s…”

Percival glanced down and moved his arm. His shadow followed, but it stretched like taffy, pulling away from its edges a hair too slow.  He stood abruptly, his heavy chair toppling over with a screech, and walked to the window. Under the sunlight streaming through the glass, the shaded outlines were clearer. His shadow followed as he moved—again, pulling away from its edges half a beat slow.

Goldstein’s mouth opened and closed without making a sound. Percival had no idea what to say, so he told her the truth.

“…I saw him this morning,” he said. “In the mirror.”

“What… did he say anything?” she whispered.

“No sound. Just… a figure, standing behind me.” He held himself as still as possible, but his shadow still seemed to move, just slightly, as if with an invisible breeze. It was most unsettling. “He seemed to understand me when I introduced myself.”

“Oh, Credence,” she said, and Percival was alarmed to see her eyes shine wetly. Thankfully she cleared her throat and straightened up. “I. Think we should Floo Ne- Mr. Scamander, sir.”

Percival opened his mouth to flatly deny her request, but suddenly a silvery Patronus burst through the door at a full run and circled Percival urgently.

“Percival,” and it was Seraphina’s voice that echoed coolly from the panther. “There’s been a breakout at Irongate; Grindelwald has escaped.”

The Patronus had barely begun fading before Percival and Tina were out the door.

 

The Magical Forensics Unit had pieced together a rough timeline of events that led up to the Obscurial incident. Gellert Grindelwald landed in New York in May, whereupon he was sheltered by wealthy and powerful patrons. He spent his days disguised, walking Manhattan from top to bottom, drinking in the stench of the streets and the urgency of the city. He watched Percival Graves for a very long time—bachelor, early forties, with no living relatives to speak of, save for three sisters well scattered across the country. The last scion of the estimable New York Graveses, who had followed his father and forefather’s footsteps into government, and recently promoted to head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for the Picquery administration, therefore the de facto right hand man of the president. Who worked late and often independently, and who returned each night to a large empty home that never had more than one room lit at a time. Well-respected, highly placed, and alone in all the ways that mattered. There was never a more ideal choice.

Thus, Percival Graves went to sleep one night in September and didn’t wake until March, when it was too late to salvage anything but the bones of his life.

 

The wreckage of Irongate was contained but violent. From the looks of it, Grindelwald had opted for the straightforward approach—the trail of destruction began at the door of his isolated cell and smashed through the shortest, straightest line to the outer walls, regardless of what stood in its path.  As soon as Graves and his team of Aurors stepped past the magical shield that turned away No Majes from the grounds of the high security prison, their senses were assaulted by the damage done—it stunk of ozone and charred flesh, smoke and blood, and the usual oppressive silence of the prison was riddled with screams, shouting, and, unnervingly, laughter. Prisoners and guards had been slaughtered with equal impunity. A grim-faced forensics assistant informed Graves that only part of the damage was magic inflicted: it seemed likely that Grindelwald had somehow managed to set off some sort of No-Maj explosive. Graves followed the path of destruction out to the small, sparse hill that overlooked the river and watched the dark water flow past.

“He’s gone, sir.” Reggie Caetano, his deputy and a hardened detective who grew up in Five Points, joined him at the edge of the river. The merman propped on a river boulder hissed at him absently, but made a formal gesture to Percival. He returned it and watched as the merman slid back under the oily surface of the East River with nary a ripple.

“I’m not so sure,” Graves muttered, surveying the surroundings slowly. He pushed himself to his feet slowly. “Irongate’s defenses run deep into this land. They contract services from the merfolk as well. There’s no way he can step foot off this island without attracting far more attention than one No-Maj explosion. But he must have some plan to leave… there is no reason to challenge the wards unless one has a plan afterwards.”

“You think he’s still here then,” Caetano said, mind jumping ahead.

“Yes, but where?” Percival muttered.

Caetano snapped his fingers. “They’re transporting the wounded to Bellevue Mage,” he said.

Graves pointed. “Go. Now.”

Apparition was impossible on the island and so Caetano took off at a run. Behind him, Graves followed at a slightly more sedate pace, rounding up the rest of his Aurors as he went and directing them back to the scene.

“We’ve accounted for the rest of the prison staff and prisoners,” Goldstein said, slightly breathless as she fell into step with him.

“Good. Are any of the wounded in critical condition?”

“Two, sir, but the medics are working on stabilizing them.”

Graves pushed a hand over his head and looked around at the chaos. “I’m locking down this island right now. No one leaves or comes in, not even medical transports, without going through me first, alright? Make sure everyone knows. And take a team—I need you to canvass Irongate and the grounds, be absolutely sure we haven’t missed anything. Send the rest to help secure the prisoners.”

Goldstein nodded curtly and veered off, shouting for others.

Meanwhile, Graves headed towards the iron gate of Irongate, where Caetano was arguing heatedly with a medic. Two stretchers floated behind them, bearing motionless figures swaddled in bandages and draped under blankets.

“Is there a problem?”

“You damn right there is!” the medic snapped. “You fellas want to strip search the rest of the island for Grindelwald, that’s your business, but I got a perforated liver and cranial hemorrhaging to take care of, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking this prisoner to the hospital.”

“Ma’am-” Percival said.

“Doctor,” she bit out.

“Doctor. We have very good reason to suspect that Grindelwald is still on this island and is likely looking for any means to escape unnoticed. For that reason, we can’t run the risk of opening the checkpoint until we’ve confirmed the identity of everyone here,” Percival told her.

“And in the meantime, my patients die,” she hissed. “Director, thirteen died in the initial explosion, another has died of their injuries since then, and now I have two more who will also die if they don’t get to a hospital immediately. I’ve triaged as much as I possibly can with what we have here. To me, we’ve already lost the day, all that’s left is to salvage what we can.”

“Take your patients back to the infirmary,” Graves ordered.

“Then you’ve killed these men,” she said.

Percival glanced at both motionless figures on the stretchers, then back at the doctor. “I trust you will do your best. Caetano?”

The other Auror nodded and stepped forward to direct the stretchers.

“No, you can’t-” the doctor protested.

“Auror Caetano will escort you to the infirmary,” Percival said, already turning his attention to the twisted gates of the prison. They did not look terribly imposing at first—at about ten feet tall at its highest point, and seven for most of its perimeter, it looked laughably flimsy in compared to the grim, black architectural monstrosity that was the prison it guarded. But the gates had been crafted with care and intent—not once had a prisoner managed to pass through the gates without being accompanied by a verified escort. And when the usual fail safes were not enough, the gates were built to adapt. Percival ignored the raised voices behind him and nodded tersely to the prison guards, who began the spellwork to lock down the gates. The iron gates began to crawl up into the sky, and the shifting earth below indicate they were extending down as well.

“Doctor— _Doctor_!” Caetano protested.

“Get her out of here,” Percival snapped.

There was a yelp and cries of pain and two curses streaked past Percival, hitting the prison guards dead on; Percival spun around to see Caetano on the ground, clutching his face.

The stretchers were overturned, spilling the patients on to the ground… one which was clearly nothing more than transfigured pillows. The other was an unconscious woman in prison wear, much resembling the doctor who now had her wand pointed at Percival. She cocked her head at him, considered him with the air of a boy playing with snails before he crushed it under his shoe.

“Well, hello, Director,” Grindelwald smiled, his own features slowly melting through his stolen ones. “It’s nice to finally meet you properly.”

“Grindelwald,” Percival said, not moving.

“I think I’ve underestimated you Yanks,” Grindelwald mused. “You people are crude, but crude can be effective as well. I’ve learned much, and I do owe you for much of it.”

“I will kill you,” Percival said calmly.

Grindelwald laughed. “Promises, promises.”

Behind him, Caetano raised his wand and opened his mouth. Without even turning, Grindelwald flicked his wand.

“ _Confringo_ ,” he pronounced desultorily, and Caetano exploded backwards.

Percival swept his own wand up. “ _Stupefy!”_

“Oh, what are we, school children?” Grindelwald laughed, batting away the spell with a turn of his wrist. “You want to kill me, so kill me!”

Rage surged through Percival, so strong and sudden that his skin felt like it was sparking. His mind was crystal clear, and his thoughts had settled into calm, cold precision. He cast a disembowelment curse silently, which made Grindelwald take a hurried step back.

“Oh-ho,” Grindelwald said, smiling grimly. “I knew you would be a strong one.”

“Shut up,” Percival said, stalking closer, his wand already fizzing with the next spell. He was vaguely aware of other Aurors converging around them, wands out and up.

“That’s hardly a fair fight, is it?” Grindelwald snarled, and slammed his foot down. Wandless magic rolled over the earth and the cries of Percival’s Aurors were cut off as everyone around them froze into an unmoving tableau.

After that, there was nothing more to be said, except for the hissing curses and hexes that flew fast and thick around them.

Percival had always been an exceptional duelist. His mother trained Auror candidates for most of her career, and had expected no less from him and his sisters since they could grip their training wands. In war, his competitive experience was honed to a sharp, deadly point, and as Head Auror, he had no lack of practice.

But, the thing was, Grindelwald was better and in perfect health.

And as Percival forced his trembling limbs to sling one more attack, he thought that if there was any good moment for an Obscurus to manifest and run rampant, now would be the time. But there was never so much as a wisp of smoke, only Grindelwald, advancing mercilessly, and pain that came with each breath.

When Percival’s knees gave after absorbing a brutal bone-cracker hex, he spared one moment for despair before struggling back to his feet. Grindelwald was not unscathed either; blood was sheeting down the side of his face, and he was clearly favoring one side. But that damnable smile still clung to the edges of his mouth, sharper and toothier, stained red. Above them, a faint screeching broke through the tense silence

“Ah,” Grindelwald sighed; his eyes caught on whatever was approaching them from the horizon. “I enjoyed that, and I sincerely hope you did as well. I could have spent a few boring hours waiting, but this was so much better. So,” he breathed in deeply. “ _Invigorating_.”

Gritting his teeth, Percival stabbed out a silent jinx, but Grindelwald deflected it smoothly and retorted with a binding spell that slammed Percival backwards into the dirt, the breath knocked from his lungs, his entire body flinching in agony. Unable to move, tears of pain slid from his unblinkingly eyes. They watched as a dark, winged horse with unnerving lizard-like features approached on the horizon, gaining on them with remarkable speed. Uneven footsteps approached him, and suddenly his view was full of Grindelwald’s pale face. The point of a wand dug into his throat and Percival’s muscles seized up, but the immobility spell held and he could only manage helpless, choking noises. It was torture.

“My, my,” Grindelwald said softly. “It really is such a waste of good magical heritage to eliminate you, Mr. Graves. I would like to take you with me, I could have a wonderful room for you at Nurnberg, the view would be quite spectacular, but something tells me you are more trouble than you’re worth. Such a pity.” He lifted his wand from his captive’s throat and stood. The animal, a thestral, slowly circled past the half-raised gated barrier, and came to a delicate stop next to Grindelwald, who stroked its nose softly and dragged himself astride. “Good bye, Mr. Graves,” he called down from his seat. Percival couldn’t turn his head, but he knew the wand was pointed at him.

The wind suddenly picked up all around them, and across Percival’s frozen view, streams of dark, black strands whisked by, and he could suddenly blink.

“What on-” Grindelwald uttered, surprise coloring his tone.

The thestral whinnied urgently, and launched itself skyward, Grindelwald clinging to its back. He was staring at Percival though, shock slowly giving way to realization and dawning rage as the black smoky remnants of Credence Barebone spun tighter and tighter and tighter about Percival until it melted back into thin air. Freed from the spell, Percival staggered to his feet, holding Grindelwald’s livid gaze until the other Aurors and prison guards rushed back into motion, Grindelwald’s spell broken.

 

“— _in the last month,_ TWICE, _Percy, what the devil is going on in New York? I've half a mind to come down and SIT on you so you, do you know what it's like to receive that godawful Congressional notification in the middle of the night? Twice in a season, buddy. It took two hours for me to get Clara to stop crying hysterically about Uncle Perky, and lord, the child hasn’t even met you before, you're always too busy to do anything but work! You know, this is_ precisely _why Mother…”_

Percival managed to meet the eyes of Seraphina Picquery with remarkable composure, he felt, as his older sister’s Howler wailed fretfully to the room at large. The president waited patiently until the furious chiding and smoke had faded away before venturing further into his hospital room.

“I've always liked Lavinia,” she said mildly. “she wasn’t afraid to shout when things went wrong.”

“Hasn’t changed much,” Percival muttered. He struggled to sit upright, but she motioned for him to stay down. He did so, but only because his newly healed ribs were still fragile. His hand flexed on his bedcovers, missing the grip of his wand.

Picquery sat down in the visitor’s chair. “Congress has been informed about the breakout, and we will be going to the Confederation soon with the news. I insisted on coming to you first, before they announced anything to the public.”

Percival grit his teeth and hauled himself up. He needed to be upright for this conversation.

“Percival, Congress wants you on suspended leave while Grindelwald is loose. There are… concerns that your past history with him, not to mention your compromised well-being, makes you a target,” Picquery said delicately.

“With all due respect, Congress has no idea what they’re talking about,” Percival said heatedly. “They do realize that this is exactly what the job entails, don’t they? I’m not exactly a low-level Auror—I’m the head of your law enforcement. I’m _supposed_ to make enemies. That shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“You’ve never had an enemy quite like Grindelwald before however,” she said neutrally.

He scoffed. “Even more reason that we need to act sooner than later.”

“And we will,” she said.

“Yet Congress wants me cowering away somewhere, because I’ve met the man and survived? Madam President, this is absurd. You need to tell them that I won’t be sent away like some- some child that needs protection. That man has destroyed my reputation and nearly singlehandedly destroyed Manhattan. If they don’t think that they need every single capable Auror on this, they are out of their goddamn minds.”

She cocked her head. “And what if I agree?”

“What?” Percival said.

Her finger tap-tapped against the arms of the chair. “I think that it would be a good idea for you to take some time away from the city.”

“You can’t be serious, Mada-”

“Percival, you’re barely eating and sleeping, and you’ve only begun recovering from your first encounter with him when he’s put you practically in traction again. The next time you meet, I’m afraid I’ll need to find a new director,” she said sharply. “So yes, I do think they have a point.”

“That is completely unwarranted, Sera-”

“Or,” she said, eyes narrowing, “How about this? You’ve been carting around the remnants of that Obscurus without informing me, against the very specific orders I’ve given you to keep me informed about such matters. Yes, I know about it; I’ve spoken to Auror Goldstein. That _Obscurus_ , Percival! The very _thing_ that Grindelwald crossed the ocean for! What you nearly died for! You don’t think that he’ll come for you when he realizes it?”

“I’ll not be forced into hiding,” Percival said. “Not by some lunatic, not by Congress either.”

She watched him, gimlet-eyed. “I can’t protect you unless you work with me. And yet, I don’t know how many times we’ve had this conversation. This time, this is larger than us all. If that Obscurus is truly tied to you, as Auror Goldstein believes, then the best solution for now is to make sure Grindelwald can’t find you, while we search for other ways to contain him.” It was unclear if she meant Grindelwald or the Obscurus. Knowing Seraphina, she meant both.

He was quiet. “Is that an order?” he said, finally. Picquery swept to her feet regally and headed out of the room.

“Call it whatever you want. You’re off duty for the next four weeks, Director, or until Grindelwald’s been squared away, whichever comes first. Tiburon will come around to sort out the details. I suggest you choose a secret keeper.”

 

* * *

 

 

Barebone, if he truly was around, was distinctly quiet in the next few days while Percival was discharged from the hospital and shunted up north like someone's invalid aunt. Tiburon Okumbe, who managed relocation services for the eastern seaboard, tossed him a Portkey as well as the usual grab bag of emergency protocols before walking Goldstein and Percival through the Fidelius spell with easy familiarity.

“Alright, Perce, that’s it,” he said, clapping his hand on Percival’s shoulder. “Hopefully you won’t see me again until next month.”

“Thanks, Ti,” Percival said, as graciously as he could, under these circumstances. Tiburon looked sympathetic.

“Auror Goldstein will Portkey with you this time, and after that, she’ll be the only one who has it. Best of luck, and Auror Goldstein, remember, not a word to anyone else, no nothing. Any urgent messages from him, initiate the proper protocol.”

“Of course, Mr. Okumbe,” she said seriously. He flashed a genial smile, then glanced at his pocket watch.

“One minute to activation, ladies and gents,” he said, and Percival angled the flour sifter so Goldstein could grab the handle. “Ten seconds. God speed, Perce.”

Percival managed a sour grimace just before he was yanked across thirty some miles north in the space of a second. The scenery soon resolved itself into a quiet, hilly forest.

All around them were high, lofty elms and sycamores, still bare of leaves. It was quiet but for the wind rustling the branches and, faintly in the distance, a mournful train puffing along the river. Percival shifted his weight, the foliage under his shoes crackling noisily. Goldstein tucked the Portkey away into her bag.

“Over here,” he said, and crunched off in the direction of an old stand of hemlock trees, four of them in a tight row. He considered the trees briefly before drawing his wand and slowly tracing a pattern before the trees. “ _Ex pertinacia veritas_ ,” he murmured.

The wind picked up, sweeping dried leaves against their legs. Slowly, the hemlocks bent around over each other, arching over the center space to form a gateway. Beyond, a great and forbidding house of gray stone and buttresses awaited them on a hill still clumped with snow. Percival waved Goldstein through, before following and drawing his wand up behind him. The trees returned to their original shape, and became, once again, a stand of wild, ordinary hemlocks.

“This is where you grew up, sir?” Goldstein asked as they trudged up the pathway. Her voice was light, but her eyes darted about curiously, taking in the manor in the foreground and the brick carriage house behind it, the sprawling grounds around them, the lamps that lined the long, winding gravel path glowing blue with flames of cold fire.

“I was born here, but grew up in Manhattan,” he corrected. “We did not spend as much time up here as my father would have liked, and my mother and sisters thought it was a dull place to spend the summers.”

“It must be lovely in the fall, though,” she said.

He paused as they reached the massive doors. “I wouldn’t know,” he said shortly, fitting the key into the lock and twisting. A small, sharp spike emerged from the lock and he pricked his thumb against it.  Blood trickled down the spike and into the inner lock. Crude, perhaps, but effective. The entire house seemed to give a sudden shudder; the door swung open silently.

“Be welcome, Master Graves,” the portrait in the foyer intoned coolly. It was of a matronly looking woman in servant’s garb, apropos of a 17th century Dutch painting. Her eyes tracked them as they came inside.

“Hello, Lotte,” Percival said.

“The bedrooms will need airing,” Lotte called after him as he led Goldstein into the old manor. “No one’s been by in years.”

The reception room was still and dim, smelling of stale wood and dusty furnishings, even with the stasis charms in place. He flicked his wand and the curtains crawled back and bound themselves with their thick black silk tassels, letting in late afternoon sunlight. Goldstein was staring at the painted murals along the walls, scenes of the hunt along the Hudson, set into painted frames topped with trefoil to match the elongated windows of the mansion. Currently, there was still snow on the ground of the murals, and a tall girl in smart hunting dress and boots sat sidesaddle on a gray dappled mare, staring boldly out of the painted scene. Then, as if hearing the sounds of a horn, both horse and rider turn away and cantered into the woods behind them.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured, and when Percival glanced at her, she waved to the murals, to the old portraits on the wood paneled walls. “The art, sir. I’ve been to the magical wing at the Metropolitan Museum, but it’s different to see them in someone’s home.”

Percival continued sweeping his wand back and forth, removing and storing dust covers, adjusting the lighting, starting the fires in the hearths. “My grandmother grew up in the French court. Any pretensions of grandeur were installed by my grandfather in a bid to impress her.”

“Did it work?”

“No.” He glanced at her with an ironic look. “She hated the manor, and insisted on spending half the year in New Orleans.”

They looped through the heart of the manor, testing the shields and protections in each room, and setting some cleaning spells to work. There was a sitting room and a parlor, a formal dining room with cabinets of gleaming silver and chinaware. The library had a spiral staircase up to the second level, and a reading nook overlooking the Hudson river that his sisters had once fought over use of in their youth. A hall of portraits, most covered by curtains, ended in an enormous, echoing ballroom. While the manor was indeed grand, Percival felt rather like the subject of a gothic horror—condemned to isolation in an empty neo-gothic monstrosity, haunted by a shadow… The comparison offended every fiber of his being.

He returned from upstairs, where he’d left his luggage and opened up the windows in the master bedroom to find Goldstein waiting for him in the parlor. She’d made tea somehow; a tray containing a cup and pot waited for him next to the highbacked armchair next to the fireplace.

“I’m heading back,” she said.

“I’ll walk with you,” he said, but she waved him off.

“It’s fine, sir.”

He acquiesced. “To the door then.”

“I’ve stocked your potions in the kitchen’s pantry,” she told him. “The instructions are on the counter.”

“Thank you, Goldstein,” he said. She turned to him at the door, eyes serious.

“And boss, if Credence is still… around, please,” she begged. “Please try to talk to him. In the meantime, I’ll talk to Ne- Mr. Scamander again, and see if he’s learned anything new.”

“I imagine there’s no other choice,” he replied, a touch bitterly. She looked awkwardly apologetic.

“Good bye, sir. I’ll see you in a week.”

Percival waited until she was halfway down the path back to the hemlock stand before closing the door and looking around the empty manor.

“Well, Credence,” he said out loud, softly, reluctantly. “You may come out whenever you’d like. It’s… safe.”

There was no reply, but as he returned to the parlor, he noticed his shadow was beginning to trail once more, long and thin.

 

It didn’t take long for Percival to set a schedule. He woke at the same hour he had for the past twenty four years—half past six, upon which he’d take breakfast in the kitchen, usually coffee with toasted bread smeared with butter and honey, eaten over the sink, and then drink his first potion of the day. The rest of the morning he spent walking about the grounds of the manor. The vestibule that led to the carriage house had not been as well-spelled—several panes from the intricate glasswork lay shattered on the floor or were cracked and fogged over. The carriage house was sound; there had been no horses or carriages behind its walls for over fifteen years now, but it was dusty, many of the stasis spells wearing thin after so many years. Out back in the garden, the roses had alternately run wild and shriveled horribly, and the glass greenhouse looked ominously jungle-like from outside. Percival made extensive notes about the necessary repairs on his frequent breaks to catch his breath, hating every moment spent on such frivolity, but also in danger of being bored out of his skull.

At noon, he ate whatever was at hand in the pantry—sometimes pre-made sandwiches from Tyrol, sometimes an apple from the preserved bushel in the corner. Afterwards, he retreated to the library where he nursed glasses of his father’s brandy and browsed the shelves. Seraphina had expressly forbidden him from taking open case files with him into exile, but he’d managed to talk Goldstein into slipping him some cold cases, and so he passed his afternoons puzzling over mysteries from the Revolutionary era or from the wild territories out west. Often, he dozed off in the armchair, book or file slipping from his lap, for an hour or two at a time. By the time he woke, it was usually already dark. Percival would then return to the kitchen for whatever was available—stew, perhaps, or another apple—and down another dosage of potions. Then, he went upstairs and continued perusing his readings in bed until exhaustion overtook him, sometime past midnight.

After two days of utter silence except for his own noisemaking, Percival caved and began speaking aloud to his shadow.

Percival was not one for speech-making. He had made head Auror, and director of magical security, and department head for law enforcement, through sheer competency and good connections. His brand of charisma had always been quieter, more intense, less glib. He disliked small-talk, so he did not ramble about the weather as others may have been so inclined. Instead, as his survey of the property drew to a close and repair work began, he narrated his actions, figuring that if Credence Barebone truly was a formless magical entity at the moment, he may as well see what sort of form magic could also take.

“Hello, Credence,” he always began quietly, and would continue in a low murmur, “See this black mold creeping along the edges of the glass, ordinary, No-Maj mold. Dry it out with a _Siccora_ , and Banish it, _Depulso_.” As he spoke, his shadow would, at times, follow him tightly. Other times, it lingered and stretched at odd angles. Sometimes, it looked perfectly ordinary. Once though, Percival was certain he saw that strange black mist detach from his shadow to hover over the cracked tile floors of the vestibule before it sunk back down again. It unnerved him to no end, but since Percival had come to the old home, the Obscurus had not been violent or disruptive, so he did his best to treat it not unlike one of his trainees, informative but distant.

The afternoons in the libraries were easier to bear, perhaps because there were already so many shadows in the nooks and crannies of the firelit room, and the files sometimes did sound better read aloud. Percival found it easier to lose his self-consciousness as he pondered a long-forgotten murder in the magical Sixth Borough of New York City. When some of the files seemed too grim to be spoken of so lightly, he read from his sister Florence’s copy of _The Magical History of Manhattan_. Credence, whatever his status, didn’t seem to object in any case.

And every night, without fail, Percival dreamed of the white space and the dark boy at its center that blotted out the light.

 

Grudgingly, Percival had to admit that the forced leave, though insulting and excruciatingly boring, was beneficial to his health. Forced to keep regular hours and take his potions, his health recovered rapidly. He awoke one morning to find himself famished, beset by a true appetite that had him pulling the bacon and eggs out of the larder. He ate cautiously, but there was nothing amiss as he methodically made his way through two eggs, toast, and a few strips of bacon. Outside, it was raining hard—happily, the weatherproofing charms over the vestibule had been refreshed, so there was no need to venture into the cold wetness outside. Besides, Goldstein would be arriving later in the day, so he might as well wrap up the file he’d been browsing; out of ten cold cases, Percival had tentative theories for six of them, and firm deductions for two.

“Case reference 2H-04152 ” he said to the still air around him as he settled down in his usual chair in the library and drew the final case file towards him. “No-Maj Manhattan, 47th Street and 9th Avenue. Annabelle Alonso, age 14. Victim was found by beat officers on patrol around five in the morning. Case was dropped into NYC Auror Department homicide division following review by coroner, T.J. Applebits. Applebits didn’t have magic,” he noted absently. “he was a Squib.”

 Some papers on the edge of the desk rustled and the flames in the fireplace flickered wildly. Percival blinked and looked up, but the room had fallen quiet once more. After a moment, Percival looked back to the file and continued. “The case went to Detective Auror Charlie Hoaken, of the 22nd precinct, who…”

“… _squib…_ ” came the voice from nowhere.

Percival’s wand was in his hand and pointed in the direction of the voice in a heartbeat, but there was no one and nothing to be seen.

“Credence?” he asked after a moment. The flames flickered again, his shadow looked very dark in the dim light.  He lowered his wand. “…you want to know about Squibs?”

The room remained quiet, but there was an almost expectant quality. Percival waited a beat and then pushed the file aside. “Squibs are members of the magical community that are unable to perform magic. They tend to have a parent or grandparents that are No-Maj; hence, the belief that pureblood families are more successful producers of magic. However, there are certainly cases of Squibs born to pureblood families, and there are wizards that have come from no magical line at all.” Percival leaned back and wracked his head for more to say. “Many of America’s early wizarding community were Squibs who’d sailed west rather than face the prejudices against them in Europe. After Rappaport’s Law came into effect, Squibs are usually the only segment of the wizarding community who can hold licenses to interact extensively with the No-Maj population. The St. Gonegan School in Boston teaches Squib students about No-Maj society, and does most of the licensing, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Covert Vigilance. Several of Squib contacts are in highly placed positions in No-Maj society. Charles Dawes, for instance.”

He waited, but there seemed to be no more reaction forthcoming. Feeling rather foolish once again, Percival sighed and turned his attention back to the cold case.

 

_“Credence,” Percival greeted. The dream space was unchanged; he never remembered these dreams when he awoke, but he inevitably found himself in the same strange faceoff night after night. Credence Barebone looked almost whole today, except for the slight rising of black mist from his skin, like white off of dry ice. “You look… well.”_

_The young man raised his head, his eyes black. His head slowly tilted from one side to the other, a slow, measured progression that was vaguely unsettling._

“I… feel… better,” _Credence said. Or rather, the sound and words had no particular association with each other, or with his unmoving mouth. They simply_ were, _resonant and ephemeral._

_“You need to come back,” Percival told him._

_“_ Why?” _The black mist rose and settled along Credence in unstable flames of motion._

_Percival raised an eyebrow. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I do not like being hounded by anything, especially a formless entity of raw destructive potential.”_

“I’m… sorry.” _The black fog began to lash out agitatedly, whipping around Credence like a veil._

_“You can’t hide from your problems forever, Credence,” Percival shouted. “You can’t--”_

 

It was a tea tray that had smashed to the floor, bits of broken crockery and silver utensils all over the carpeting. Percival blinked rapidly, wand gripped tight in his hand.

“I- I’m sorry, sir,” Goldstein stammered, absently flicking her wand. The pieces of chinaware and scattered food rose up and fit themselves back together, settling sedately on the silver tray.

“Goldstein,” Percival mumbled, and glanced at the clock over the mantelpiece. It was just past two in the afternoon.

“Sir,” she said urgently. “Sir, did you—I came in, and it was Credence. He was here. He was standing next to your chair, sir. Did you know?”

“Of course not, I was asleep,” he retorted, wishing she would go stand in the hall while he sorted himself out from his abrupt awakening. He scrubbed a hand over his face and back across his head before levering himself up from the chair. “Did you really see him?”

“Yes, he was there, and well,” her face twisted oddly, “on the wispy, shadowy side of things.”

Percival stared at her. “I see.”

“I’ve brought some more supplies,” Goldstein said after a moment. “My sister sent along some pies and casseroles. It’s in the kitchen.”

Percival’s newly revived appetite thought that sounded more than welcome, and they went into the kitchen, where Goldstein cut him a healthy serving of shepherd’s pie while he boiled water for coffee. She quickly summarized the goings on at the office as well as the status of the open cases ongoing. Percival commented where necessary, unofficial suggestions for Caetano, who had become interim director in his absence.

“And Grindelwald?” Percival asked when they drew stools up to the kitchen counter to sit. “What of him?”

Here, Goldstein shifted her weight uneasily. “In the wind. There’s precious little to go from—not all of the Aurors could even see the thestral that picked him up.”

“What Auror can’t see thestrals?” Percival asked, aghast.

She sent him a reproachful look. “Grogan Bilkes, sir. She’s in forensic accounting.”

He sighed and waved for her to go on.

While Grindelwald remained elusive, the recent prison break had allowed Picquery significant leverage with which to squeeze the international confederation. They now had funding, as well as Auror reserves from overseas to assist. Percival didn’t like the idea of foreigners meddling in American wizarding affairs, but he had no real say in the decision. They discussed leads and possible strategies for another half hour, and at the end of it, he had scraped his plate empty and Goldstein was on her second coffee.

“Everything else going well?” he asked somewhat warily.

“Nothing bad, sir,” she said. “There’s rhubarb.” He waved away the offer. “I spoke to the president about bringing Mr. Scamander in,” she said.

“She didn’t like that much, I’m guessing,” he said. “I don’t like it either.”

“She agreed.”

“Well, damn,” he sighed.

“Sorry, sir,” she said, not remotely apologetic.

He squinted at her for a long moment. “Why are you here, Goldstein? What is this to you? We aren’t close. You didn’t even work directly under me before.  If this was only about the Barebone boy, you'd lobby for Scamander’s return, to hell with me.”

“Boss!” she protested.

“Though I suppose once Barebone manages to pull himself together, you’ll be ready to whisk him off; that would explain this… babysitting,” he said, and she flinched slightly.

“It’s not like that,” she said quietly.

He raised an eyebrow. “No?”

When she finally managed to meet his eyes, her gaze was steady and clear. “No one deserves to have gone through what you did, sir.”

Ah, pity.

“…Thank you for your excessive care, Ms. Goldstein,” he said sardonically. “But it’s not necessary.”

She stood and began collecting her things. “Perhaps, Director Graves,” she allowed evenly. “But I don’t think so. It isn’t shameful to need or accept help, especially when it’s offered. No one thinks less of you. Not a single one in the whole department. And besides, who says I’m doing it for you?” she added lightly. “Perhaps I just want to be in your good graces.”

She took her leave then, gathering his previous files and reports, and leaving him with a fresh stack of cold cases. Percival returned to the library and failed to make any headway into his reading.

 

The Barebone Obscurus rapidly gained form over the following week. Over the course of renewing the spells on the carriage house, Percival’s shadow stopped acting out; instead, a faint black haze sometimes appeared in his vicinity, always hovering a short distance away whenever he spoke. It was easier to direct his words to a subject, even if it was a formless cloud. Percival never managed to see Credence Barebone, as Goldstein had sworn she’d seen on her visit, but he began catching glimpses of white skin and black hair in reflective surfaces around the house. The portraits certainly could tell; Lotte in the entry hall raised her eyebrows so high they nearly disappeared into her hair when she noted the drift of magic that trailed him. 

“Master Graves, I see you’ve brought one of your uncommon friends back this time as well,” she called after him pointedly. “I hope you aren’t planning on housing him in the linen closet this time.”

“He’s an Obscurus, not a bullfrog,” Percival shouted back distractedly. He directed the massive barrel of glass strengthening potion carefully past the front entrance and down the footpath to the garden. Under one arm was an empty fishbowl. It was warm this week, the lingering April snow having melted away entirely. It was as good a day as any to start the work on the greenhouse.

“Speaking of rooms in pristine but unused condition,” Lotte’s voiced floated from indoors, “you ought to air out the old nursery too. You’ll need one for your tagalong.”

“He’s not a child either, Lotte!” he replied, but sighed when he realized he was arguing with a painting of his father’s childhood nanny. Half a year ago, he never would have been caught in such frivolous conversation. But the house was too big, too empty for one man, full of old memories and remnants of a distant past he barely knew. The isolation was a hard burden even for a solitary man as himself. It had not helped that the rain had continued without much end for the past few days, leaving him roaming the empty corridors aimlessly and muttering aloud. It was for the benefit of Barebone, he told himself, but couldn’t help the sense that he wasn’t far off from madness. And then he truly would become a gothic horror cliché. Percival hated that nonsense passionately. Perhaps that was why as soon as the dawn broke pale blue but dry this morning, he all but leapt from bed into his oldest clothes: a loose linen shirt and brown knickerbockers over his sturdiest boots, and decided to tackle whatever task would keep him outdoors for longest.

The greenhouse was enormous, stretching from the edge of the rose garden to the gravel carriage path. At a leisurely stroll, it took three minutes to cross from one end to the other. That was if you made it down its corridors unmolested. Back in its heyday, the greenhouse was one of the finest in the thirteen colonies. Its specimens had been mostly donated or auctioned off shortly after Percival’s father passed, but there had been a few remaining plants remaining, and they had clearly flourished despite the neglect. The way the greenery pushed against the inside of the glass was ominous, but Percival had never been one to shy from confrontation, especially from overgrown foliage with delusions of grandeur. At the old glass door of the greenhouse, he carefully set the barrel down and cast a stasis charm over the top. He tugged his newsboy cap off and scrubbed back his hair, then pulled on a pair of elbow high gardening gloves he’d found in the shed behind the carriage house and fished the magically shrunken shears in his pocket, returning it to its normal size as he did so.

“Credence,” he said aloud; to his side, the black haze was visible; in the glass of the door, the translucent shape of a tall, thin man stood beside his more robust shadow. By now, Percival didn’t even blink. “A wizard’s greenhouse is a dangerous place, as dangerous as a potion master’s laboratory, if not more. In a laboratory, ingredients are carefully measured and mixed—magic is contained to essences in bottles and cauldrons. However, a greenhouse is made to incubate live magic, and that is what makes it unpredictable. As you are currently existing as pure magic, I’d recommend you wait outside while I investigate how bad the damage is on the inside.”

Credence made no reply, but the mist drifted away from the entrance. Percival hefted the shears up on his shoulder, and leveled his wand at the door.

“Alohomora.”

The doors swung out, reluctantly, vines and leaves trying to pull it shut once more. He wedged it open with a stopper and ventured in, as cautiously as if he were raiding a den of thieves. And with good reason. As soon as his foot crossed the threshold, a thick vine shot around his waist and squeezed, lifting him clear off the floor. He sliced through the offending vine with alacrity, tumbled into the thick of the jungle. And a jungle it certainly seemed. He was standing in the very center, under the glass cupola roof. When his grandfather originally built the greenhouse, the floor had been laid with hand-painted tiles carried through the Khyber Pass; as a boy, Percival had crawled after the curling, painted grape vines and sniffed curiously at the bursting bunches of fruit that dangled at the corners. Since then, the dust and dirt and detritus of plants run riotous had entirely hidden the painted bowers. All around him was chaotic, murky greenery that ran over the old fountain at the center, across the work table surfaces, up the windows. He hadn’t been much for herbology, but even he could recognize the alarming size and reach of the venomous tentacula.

Percival smiled faintly and raised his wand as the next vine sprang at him.

 

“We used to keep umbrella flowers in the dome up there,” Percival said as he trimmed the venomous tentacula back to a manageable size. The greenhouse looked like a warzone—an enormous pile of dead branches and plants rose in a heap that nearly reached the span of Percival’s height. He’d set it in the fountain to Banish to the compost pile out back later. He wasn’t unmarked either—cuts from the thrashing vines, some which sported thorns, littered his arms and a particularly bloody cut had sliced through his cheek. They were easily spelled away though, and in comparison to past injuries, Percival barely felt them. Most of the aggressive foliage had been restrained or subdued, leaving Percival to spend the rest of the day cleaning pots of their plant carcasses and hauling the empty ones out of the way. Most of the plants were dead, except for the persistent tentacula, and one stubborn corner that was overtaken by a No-Maj strain of mint. Credence had drifted in at some point, his face reflecting off of one of the glass panes, so Percival had resumed his narration.

“They’re attractive and easy to take care of, but only last a season; you need to bring in new ones every year.” He tossed the final branch to the dead plant pile and stepped back to eye the trimmed tentacula, which was looking meek and mild. “Don’t be fooled,” he told Credence. “These things are stubborn bastards.”

With a generous sweep of his arm, he Banished the lot to the compost heap.

Rolling his shoulders, Percival stepped back from the work table and glanced around. It was well past lunch, and he had an entire greenhouse to clean and respell. The floor was even dirtier than it had been this morning, though that would be easily handled with a quick sweeping spell. The glass walls and ceilings though, were somewhat more complicated.

The unencumbered growth of the plants in murky wet heat had grown algae all along the glass. It was, quite literally, a green house. Cleaning out dust and debris was one thing—getting rid of something living was a bit more challenging.  They tended to be stubborn about death, like most other living things. Instead, Percival had prepared a magical lure. He set the fishbowl down on the rim of the fountain and stepped back. He stripped off the long gardening gloves and rolled up his sleeves. From his pocket, he fetched a small stoppered bottle of clear liquid and poured the contents into the bowl.

“See that?” He stood and pocketed the bottle. “Sometimes force is unnecessary. Sometimes all you need is a little promise. Or in, this case, lake water.”

With his wand pointed into the bowl, he murmured a spell over the water, then craned his head back to examine the walls and ceilings overhead. There were several rooms in the greenhouse—to the southern wing lay the desert house; at the other end lay the tundra room. Neither of those would need quite the same attention, though by no means were they in pristine condition either. The rest of the greenhouse was tropical—the algae grew thick and slimy over three-quarters of the glass, and formed a slippery layer over the floor. It seemed inches thick in some corners, crowding into a murky green carpet.

“The trick is to promise them something better,” Percival said. The air shivered—he took that as a sign that Credence was paying attention. “You do that by offering them what they want.”

He raised both arms and cleared his throat, and began speaking of lakes.

 

Long ago, his great-great-grandfather learned of the Native traditions when he stumbled, lost and snow-blind, into the camp of a tribe of Woodland Cree Indians. He stayed through the winter before leaving once the snows had melted, but returned often to visit the those who had saved his life. According to family legend, he was especially good friends with the chief’s mother. Even after marrying and having children, he occasionally returned, sometimes bringing his young children to visit her. As best Percival’s grandfather could recall, she worked her magic verbally, often through song.

His grandfather had always been interested in the ways of his father’s Cree friends, but had never learned any of the Cree songs—nothing of the traditional spells that would bless a hunt or raise a fire. But he did learn the _trick_ of how those spells worked, a skill that passed to Percival’s mother, and finally to Percival and his sisters.

Percival had not spoken magic in years, not like this for a spellcasting, and certainly not by himself. Unlike his youngest sister Cordelia who could charm a tree of its fruit with nothing but a gay little song, he had to use his wand in conjunction of the, and it did not help that he had a tin ear. But as he continued, the spell began taking hold, and his voice evened out.

“Magic is not just a tool,” his grandfather had told them. “It is a force of nature, it is in everything—the land, the sky, the air we breathe and the plants and animals around us. Speak to it, and it will respond.”

So Percival spoke magic to the greenhouse, telling the algae of a lake on the property, wide and gleaming on cloudless days, home to waterfowl and small fish below its surface. He regaled them with tales of the rocks and boulders that lined its edges, smooth and warm on summer days. An entire lake, where they could bloom and grow and spread beyond the flat glass panes. And then, as the air around him hummed, he spoke to them of unity, of coming together, of gathering from their scattered corners into the glass bowl where they could taste the lake he had promised. Come together, he coaxed. Come together.

They came, unpeeling from the glass in green strips, and rolling into the bowl. It was slow at first, but soon the bowl was growing, larger and larger to hold its contents. Percival continued to hum until the last drop of algae entered the bowl, and then he flicked a stasis charm over the bowl and shrank it down to a manageable size. His throat was dry, but overhead, the glass panes were gleaming, and sunlight, bright and hot, streamed in unobstructed.

He picked up the bowl of algae. “Well, that went admirably,” he said and turned around.

The bowl nearly slipped from his fingers; before him was a tall, thin young man, black hair, sober, ill-fitting suit, looking not unlike a rabbit frozen just before flight.

“I- I- I don’t—I- not sure,” Credence stammered, eyes wide and verging on panicked.

Percival swallowed and held up a finger. “One moment,” he said, and brushed past him to set the bowl outside of the greenhouse. It was late afternoon now, the wind cooler now, still too early in the season for balmy summer nights. Percival scrubbed a hand over his head, took in a deep breath, and then went back inside. He half expected Credence to be gone again, as ephemeral as he’d seemed in mirrors and glass surfaces. But there he was, still hunched and if not for the faint tremors along his frame, Percival would have thought him a particularly dour statue.

“Mr. Barebone,” he said in a tone better suited to calming a spooked horse. “Welcome back.”

 Credence flinched.

“Can you walk?” Percival prompted after a brief silence. Credence nodded jerkily. “Good. Do you know who I am?” he added belatedly.

“Percival Graves,” Credence whispered.

“That’s right. I’m happy to finally meet you,” Percival said. “…How do you feel?”

Credence swayed on his feet. “I think…”

Percival subtly gripped his wand as the young man took an uneven step forward. “Easy, easy,” he said as Credence’s breathing went shallow. “Credence, just breathe. You're safe here, you're alright. “

“I- can’t-” His breath hitched, and for one, heart-stopping moment, Percival prepared himself to face the sudden onslaught of a full-formed Obscurus.

Instead, Credence’s eyes rolled up into his head and his knees crumpled. Percival cast a Levitation Charm just before Credence hit the floor.

 

Credence slept through the rest of the day, the night, and deep into the following morning as well. He had barely twitched as Percival levitated him into the manor, and up into the Violet Room. He made no protest as Percival spelled his shoes and coat off, then transfigured his shirt and trousers into something softer. If not for the slight rise and fall of his chest, he wouldn’t have looked much different from those bodies in the morgue. Percival had set a glass of water on the bedside table, cast a monitoring charm over him, and exited quietly in order to find a stiff drink.

That night, Percival’s sleep was deep and dreamless.

 

Percival had not dared to leave the manor, despite the work remaining on the greenhouse. He had instead spent the morning roaming the empty corridors of the manor, opening up the windows and drawing back the curtains in long-forgotten rooms for lack of anything better to do. His day spent outdoors working with his hands had only made him more restless.

“You might air out the ballroom, and play some dancing music,” the portrait of his young aunt Cecily sighed as he passed by the portrait hall.

“Who on earth would I dance with?” he asked, smiling despite himself. His aunt had been carried off by a virulent strain of dragon pox shortly after turning 16—barely old enough to dance in public herself.

“Lotte says there’s a woman in trousers who stops by once a week,” Cecily said eagerly. “Or that shadow boy that follows you about. Oh, Percy, even just any music. It’s been awful quiet lately.”

“Very well,” Percival said, amused and also a little sad. He ventured into the newly rediscovered music room and carted a harp into the portrait hall. He left it playing something sweet and rippling in the echoing hall of the gallery. In the confines of her gilded frame, Cecily laughed and clapped her hands.

The monitoring spell went off shortly after noon. Percival had been in the midst of poking through his grandmother’s laboratory when it began chiming. He immediately negated the cleaning spells that were running and stopped by the kitchen where he ladled out some of Tyrol’s chicken stew and headed upstairs. At the door, he knocked twice and entered.

Credence was sitting up in bed, sleep-mussed and dazed. The rest had done him good—he had a touch more color in his cheeks, and his shoulders were no longer drawn up about his ears. His eyes snapped to Percival as he entered, tracking him as he came to the foot of the bed. His expression was wary, but not as panicked as the day before, thankfully.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Barebone.”

Credence stared, and then looked around, taking in the pale purple wallpaper and open window which overlooked the woods of Tarrytown. “Where am I?”

Percival gently set the tray of soup over Credence’s lap before pulling up a chair from the writing desk. “We’re in Westchester county. In my home.”

“Yours?” Credence looked at him with an unreadable expression.

“My family’s. Credence—may I call you Credence?” Percival waited for the slow nod. “Can you tell me what do you remember?”

Credence looked at the contents of the bowl for a long, silent moment. “Do you know where my sister is?”

“Your sister?” Percival strained his memory of the report—yes, there were two sisters, the older which had been killed alongside the mother, and a younger one, with one of those awful puritanical names. Modesty. “She’s safe and well. She’s being taken care of by a No-Maj family in Brooklyn. If you’d like, I’ll have an Auror look in on her.

“Alright,” Credence agreed quietly, pressing his eyes closed. “I… remember, most things,” he said haltingly. “But. I don’t. I don’t understand it.”

“That’s fine,” Percival assured.

Credence glanced at him, and shied away again.

“I can come back later,” Percival offered.

“I’m sorry,” Credence whispered.

“Not at all,” Percival said, standing up from his seat. “Try to eat something. I’ll be downstairs in the library—you can ask any of the portraits you see for directions, when you’re ready to come down.” He tried for a smile as he left, but Credence didn’t meet his eyes.

 

How No-Maj detectives ever solved any murders, Percival will never fully understand. Though most crime in the wizarding community often relied on wand work, and thus could be traced to some extent, what of the crimes of passion involving knives and firearms? He supposed one could modify a Banishing spell to send the murder weapon back to the wielder, or perform the Prior Incantato, but even that involved a wand and serious spellwork, as well as a small pool of suspects. No-Maj detectives though, went about it from a completely different angle—a jigsaw of a different brand. Percival’s current old case file was one of those rare crossover cases, where a murdered wizard fell under jurisdiction of the local No-Maj police department. The murderer had turned out to be the dead wizard’s No-Maj neighbor, a nurse who had a predilection for feeding her patients strychnine. That the victim had been a wizard had been pure coincidence, so they’d left it to the No-Majes, and only filed a copy of the investigating detective’s final report. Percival mused on how likely Picquery would approve a request to send some of the Aurors in homicide to a No-Maj lecture on toxicology.

The faint creak of the door made him look up. Credence hovered in the doorway, his transfigured clothes loose around his plain black boots.

“Come in, Credence,” Percival said after a moment. He drew up a plush armchair with a wave of his wand and gestured for him to seat himself. The young man crept in uncertainly and sat gingerly, as if expecting it to bite him. For a moment, they stared at each other. Percival cleared his throat and shuffled his papers and laid them aside. “How are you feeling?”

“Well,” Credence said.

Percival nodded. “Good. Good. Are you still hungry? There’s coffee, tea. Some sandwiches. More soup.” But Credence was shaking his head no.

The silence that fell was long and tense, until finally, Percival sighed. “Well. It seems like both of us have some information to share, so shall we take turns?”

Credence shrugged. “I don’t know what you want to know.”

Precival shook out a couple sheets of paper and spelled the pen with a dictation charm. “When in doubt, look to the start. I’ll tell you what has happened since you… disappeared. Why don’t you tell me of the first time you met Grindelwald? Or, I suppose, his approximation of… me.”

This time, Credence lifted his dark eyes to his. “I met you, sir, last year. In the spring.”

That was before Grindelwald had struck, which meant he was talking about Percival himself. “I’m sorry,” Percival said. “I don’t recall.”

Credence’s head dipped again. “It was just for a moment, sir. Some boys stole my hat and dropped it in a fountain. You brought it back to me. Dried.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You were very kind.”

Percival frowned in surprise; the incident was vaguely familiar—he recalled the hat, anyways, and the mild annoyance towards the pack of kids that ran the block between Canal and Worth. “I remember some of that.”

Credence continued, his gaze fixed on his hands. “I saw you sometimes, walking by. On cold mornings you stop by Rolando’s Grocery for coffee before going into the Woolworth Building, but I don’t think you ever noticed me.”

“Can’t say that I have,” Percival murmured. Credence, shrugged one shoulder and watched the fireplace.

“I don’t think you remembered me at all,” he said. “I don’t really know what I would have done if you had. I only wanted to – to see you, sometimes. Because you seemed so… fearless. I wondered what it would be like to walk down the street as you did, like nothing would dare touch you, like Moses parting the sea. I didn’t mind that you didn’t notice me. I- I never expected you to. But one day, I saw you on the other side of the street. And instead of walking on, you stopped and turned. You were staring back.” His lips twisted bitterly. “Or, someone who looked just like you.”

Percival found himself speechless. Although the library was warm, heated by magic and hearth, he felt chilled by the horrible implications of what he’d just heard. Across from him, Credence stared into the fire, his hands clasped tightly on his knees.

“Credence,” Percival said hoarsely. The young man turned his face, but avoided his eyes. “I am sorry.”

“Why?” Credence sounded genuinely curious.

 _Because_ , Percival wanted to say, _Because a madman ruined my life, but until now, I didn’t realize he’d torn it apart only in order to better devastate yours_.

Instead, he silently poured out a cup of tea for his companion and pushed it across the table. “Would you like to hear how you came to follow me home?” he asked.

Credence looked as though he would rather him answer his question, but he eventually inclined his head, which Percival took as acquiescence.

“My memory is uncertain,” he began, “but I awoke in a tenement attic on Orchard Street…”

 

Percival spoke succinctly and methodically, falling into the familiar cadence of an official debriefing. He recounted the arrest of Grindelwald and imprisonment in Irongate, extradition pending, and of his own frustratingly slow recovery. He told him of Tina Goldstein’s quiet mourning and determination to prevent such incidents from occurring again. He detailed how they’d first realized that Credence may not have been as gone as they’d believed, as well as the several different theories that had risen to explain his presence and odd attachment to Percival Graves. Even though Percival was disinclined towards flourishes and extraneous commentary, the retelling took longer than expected—true night had fallen by the time he told Credence of cleaning the greenhouse. By the end of it, Credence’s tea was cold, yet untouched. 

“Were you aware of any of this?” Percival asked after finishing to silence.

“Some, I think,” Credence said quietly. “I… understood that I was following you. But- it was so loud, and there was so much noise at times. And you were just… the quiet one. I tried to reach out at nights, or at least I think so. The world tasted… felt… sharper, at night.”

Fleetingly, Percival thought of a black-haired boy dissolving against a stark white void. A dream, perhaps?

Credence glanced around the room. “I remember here,” he said. “As soon as we left Manhattan, I could- I knew what my surroundings were. There was still… buzzing, but it was so much quieter. I often heard a voice, and I couldn’t always understand what it was saying, but I listened.  It was easy.” He sounded wistful. “You sounded so kind.”

Percival, who had often been accused of intemperate brusqueness let out a surprised laugh. “You're sure it was me, not Goldstein?”

Credence seemed to shrink in on himself, and Percival hastened to correct his words. “It’s only, I'm not often associated with kindness. “

“You've always been so, to me,” Credence said.

“And you are too fair, considering what my imposter has put you through.”

But Credence shook his head. “I knew who you were, sir, even if I didn't realize it until I'd… changed.”

Percival cocked his head. “As an Obscurus, you mean? “

“It was like I couldn't lie anymore, and neither could this… _magic_ lie to me again. It was why I followed you. Because I knew you to be true.” He fell silent.

There was nothing else that either of them felt like saying. As it was nearly eight, Percival suggested a light supper of Tyrol’s chicken casserole and the formidable Queenie Goldstein’s rhubarb pie, which they ate quietly at the kitchen table. Credence returned to his room afterwards, and Percival back to the library where he nursed a glass of scotch until late into the night.

 

Goldstein, to the embarrassment of everyone present took one look at Credence and burst into tears.

“I’m sorry,” she immediately apologized, horrified at her outburst. “It’s just terrific to see you, Credence.” She took Percival’s offer of a handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of her eyes.

“Thank you, Ms. Goldstein,” Credence replied quietly, and Tina beamed at him

“Call me Tina, please! When did this happen? Sir, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I’ll remind you that this location is unplottable as well as under oath, and is not available for fire calls,” he said dryly as the handed over old cases for a fresh bundle. They repaired to the atrium with coffee and tea to discuss some ongoing matters. While Percival reviewed Reggie Caetano’s latest notes about the department, Tina ran through checklists with Credence—Percival paid just enough attention to recognize a few of the typical magical malady screenings, and some that sounded downright veterinarian. He guessed those might have come from Mr. Scamander. However, he was soon lost in his own readings. The international coalition of magical inspectors had been driving Reggie mad with their somewhat cavalier treatment of the Secrecy statute. One young lad from South Africa had, with complete sincerity, suggested running a wanted ad in _The_ _New York Times_. Thankfully, that notion had been soundly squashed, but it still left everyone scrambling for a strategy. The final analysis of the Irongate prison break had revealed not much more than what was already known—ordinary, non-magical materials had been used to strategically stress the magic-enhanced bars of Grindelwald’s cell, and when guards came to check, Grindelwald had incapacitated the first one, stole his wand, and blasted a trail straight through the walls, tearing through to the infirmary and exercise yard. While sending everyone scrambling in the chaos, he’d doubled back and knocked out the nurse on duty. Percival itched to walk through the crime scene himself, though it wasn’t likely he’d see anything new. Since then, the prison was being rebuilt, a slow and laborious process since several new layers of protection were being added. The prisoners were uneasy and restless, and their sudden need to share cells did not make it easier. Picquery’s administration had doubled the number of scheduled executions per week to ease the overcrowding. This was beginning to strain Law Enforcement’s resources, considering the number of panicked appeals by prisoners and their families that had begun swamping the post. Caetano didn’t say it explicitly, but Percival could read between the lines; all hands were needed on deck.

He set the report aside, and looked up to find Goldstein and Credence having come to a pause in their conversation. He sealed his notes to Reggie and handed them over to Goldstein.

“May I suggest in your next meeting with Madam President that she lift the exile, now that Credence is whole and… solid?”

“Boss, you know she won’t,” Goldstein said. “You’ll need to convince her of the exact opposite, as now there’s probably nothing to stop him from murdering you outright.”

Credence made a faint noise of dismay.

“You underestimate me,” Percival said, scowling.

“Maybe, but it isn’t something the president is willing to chance,” she said. “Not until we know where Grindelwald is, and what he’s planning.”

“There is more to it than Grindelwald,” he pointed out. “The department itself needs me. Even if I’m confined to the desk, there’s plenty I could do.”

Goldstein looked unhappy. “She said her decision’s final. You’re here until the end.”

“For Merlin’s _sake_ ,” Percival seethed, shoving back from his seat with a screech to pace the length of the atrium. “I’m the Director of Magical Security. I’ve spent over twenty years of my life risking it against criminals and scumbags—so this one got the better of me when I wasn’t expecting it. Well, I’m a damned sight more informed now. I’m an _asset_ , Goldstein, not a- a racehorse to be put out to pasture.”

His outburst was met by silence; Credence, he saw, was staring hard at the floor, his shoulders drawn tight around his shoulders. Goldstein pressed her lips together. She looked sympathetic, but stayed silent.

“Damn it all,” Percival cursed and stalked out of the manor.

 

The Graves estate rolled all the way down the hill to the edges of the Hudson. It made no sense from a No-Maj point of view—strictly speaking, a direct cut through to the river would have passed through North Tarrytown. But the Graves were a powerful line, and they wouldn’t let something so mundane as a village upset their landscaping. Magically, the space between the edge of the gardens down to the river was borrowed from sometime around the year 1300. When Percival and his sisters were still young, they often went through the woods down to the river, where they splashed and sailed on rafts of leaves and twigs, spelled together firmly. Sometimes, they would see faint drifts of white smoke from campfires—Lenape Indians, perhaps, who hunted and fished in the waters.

It hadn’t changed much since the last time he’d been down there. Still the same, mild afternoon from some nameless day in the past, quiet but for the gentle rush of the Hudson on river rocks, the wind catching between the leaves of the beeches overhead. He hated this place—its unsettling stillness and uniformity, the clean sharp edges of the brisk air. He hated being along, in a massive cadaver of a house, with no one but portraits of the long dead and a young man so severely traumatized by Percival’s face that he could barely form sentences.

Most of all, he hated Grindelwald, with a black, lashing rage. It rose in furious cresting waves that threatened to choke him. He flung a column of blazing white heat into the river water just for something to do; steam hissed and spat as the river boiled momentarily before continuing on its placid trek to open ocean. The smell of hot, brackish river water drifted back to shore.

There was the crackle of footsteps behind him.

“I don’t want to talk, Goldstein,” he grit out.

The footsteps paused.

“Tina had to go,” Credence said, and joined him at the water’s edge.

“I am not pleasant company at the moment, Credence,” he warned, but his companion only glanced at him sidelong.

“Mother never took us out of the city,” Credence said instead. “I've never seen so many trees.”

Percival snorted. “And not a hot dog cart in sight.” He wished he had thought to buy a new pack of cigarettes before leaving the city. The air here was too sweet for his mood.

“All this land,” Credence marveled. “All for yourself.”

“My family’s,” Percival corrrected. “Not mine.”

“Still, I would have given anything,” Credence continued, “ _everything_ , to be somewhere far away and peaceful, no one else around.”

“Then this must be heaven for you,” Percival snapped, then sighed and took a deep breath. “I apologize, Credence.”

The young man smiled, a small, bitter twist of his lips. “I thought it was, at first,” he admitted. “It still feels like it could be a dream, and any moment I’ll wake up on Pike Street, Mother waiting downstairs with pamphlets.”

At his words, the steam went out of Percival. “That will never be your life again, Credence,” he told him. “Even if you wanted to go back, you can’t.”

Slowly, Credence turned to stare at him.

“Because you’re a wizard,” Percival added when Credence only blinked at him.

“I… didn’t think…” Credence said, sounding stunned. “I thought Mr. Gra- he was just… lying.”

Percival sighed. “On that point, he was not. You may not have the same training or upbringing as the rest of us, but manifesting as a stormcloud of pure magical energy is a dead giveaway.  No-Majes, nor Squibs, for that matter, can’t manage that particular feat.”

“Oh,” Credence said. He sounded uncertain. “What… what is it like? Being a wizard.”

That surprised a shout of laughter from Percival.

“What a question, kid,” he said, shaking his head. “The… Grindelwald, he never brought you in?”

“To what?”

Percival huffed. “The Sixth Borough. Were you never there?”

“I don’t know, sir, I’ve only ever heard of five,” Credence said.

“That answers the question,” Percival said. “You’d know if you’d been. Trust me, it ain’t like the others.”

At that moment, the wind swept down the river bank, rustling the boughs overheard. Credence twitched and sneezed explosively.

“Alright, back to the house,” Percival ordered, and reached out to clasp a guiding hand on his shoulder. Credence flinched so hard he lost his balance. His foot caught on the uneven dirt and he fell.

For a frozen moment, they stared at each other, Credence from the ground and Percival with his hand still lifted.

“Are you alright?” Percival said neutrally.

“I- I- I’m s-so-”

Percival held his palms out before him, as if calming a spooked horse. “No, no, it’s my own fault for startling you. I won’t touch you, I promise.” He took a deliberate step back as Credence scrambled to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” Credence said miserably, his face stained a blotchy red. “I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Well, I apologize for startling you,” Percival replied lightly. The young man didn’t look much convinced, so Percival started up the path. “Let’s go back, I think Goldstein brought some more pie. There’s some mulling spices and cider as well in the pantry.” He walked ahead, keeping his shoulders loose and his steps easy, even as that black rage, roused again by the dark meanings of Credence’s violent reaction, sank, coiled and taut, deep into his gut.

 

Tina had left a letter for Percival in the kitchen, a brisk, efficient list of items they had not discussed before he had left the house, and a less efficient, rambling addition that included such illuminating tidbits as, “Please for the love of Merlin, stop working all the time and talk to him” and “He’ll need someone to teach him how to hold a wand, and I will come by every evening to do so if you will not. Make that your contribution to the war effort if you must.” She was getting bolder, he thought sourly, and he certainly did not wish for her to return daily. That was an undesirable situation for all, and so the next morning, Percival descended into the old nursery and began rooting through the old drawers. Lotte poked into a frame watercolor of carousel horses and reprimanded him for not airing the room out as she’d told him to. He ignored her for the most part. When he had found the key, he went up to the Violet Room.

“Good morning, Credence,” he said when the door opened. “How is the fit on those clothes?”

Credence tugged at the too-short trouser legs, cut in a slightly old-fashioned style. They had been buried in Percival’s father’s old wardrobe, and smelled faintly of mothballs, despite the refreshing spell Percival had used before turning them over.

“Stand up straight,” Percival told him, and waited until Credence uncurled from his unconscious stoop. He swept a critical eye over the crisp white shirt that was short in the arm but loose about the shoulders and rib cage. “Lift your arms thereabouts, and don’t move. Don’t be alarmed,” he instructed, and flicked his wand in careful, deliberate motions. The sleeves extended to a reasonable length just above Credence’s wrist bones, while the body of the shirt drew to a closer fit. Another flick and the trousers did the same. Now, Credence resembled less of a scarecrow and more of a sober, Victorian youth. “That’ll do for now,” Percival said, eyeing Credence’s dull, scuffed boots with resignation. Nothing to do for them until they returned to the city, he supposed.

“For what?” Credence asked warily. Percival raised an eyebrow in reply and led him down the hall to the nursery.

There were several rooms that comprised the Graves Manor nursery—the children’s wing included the bedrooms that Percival and his sisters had occupied when they were young, as well as an accompanying washroom with the facilities sized down for a shorter population. There was an open playroom with gaily painted depictions of circus animals and performers on the walls and a levitating rocking horse tethered in the corner. There was also a small classroom with desks and bookshelves all along the walls that hadn’t been used in generations—Percival had never taken lessons during his summers in the manor, but his father and aunt had.

The room that Percival led them to was through a heavy oak door off of the play room. He fished the heavy iron key that he’d found earlier and fit it into the lock. It took a bit of jimmying—no magic involved, but a spot of oil was perhaps needed—before it turned grudgingly. Percival shoved his shoulder against the door which swung open with a good hard scraping, but then they were inside a long, echoing hall. It was an open, rectangular space with a raised platform that ran nearly the whole length of the room. Along the inner wall were wooden shelves and racks holding a varying assortment of wands, in all different woods and organized by length. There was also a series of foils, epees, and sabers for fencing.  The sun was already bright and strong that morning, streaming through the high narrow bank of windows that lined the wall. It warmed the whole space, even accounting for the lofted ceilings.

“Welcome to the dueling hall,” Percival said, making a beeline for the racks of wands. “This was where I spent most of my time, with my mother and my sisters.”

“Dueling hall?” Credence echoed, staring all around as Percival frowned at the labeling under the wands. “What- What are those, are they wands?”

“Of course they are,” Percival said distractedly. Walnut, perhaps, or beech. Chestnut, as well, to start with. He plucked them off the shelves and laid them upon a heavy oak table at one end of the great hall and beckoned Credence over. “When we return to the city, the first thing you must do is to obtain a wand for yourself. It is a wizard’s first weapon in his arsenal. Each wand is unique, and they only grow more so the more you use it. However, these training wands will have to do. They are all unicorn hair-”

“Unicorns,” Credence repeated.

“-standard nine to fifteen inches, no unique shape to speak of.” Percival picked up the beech and gave it a utilitarian swish. A small scatter of sparks obligingly popped from the tip. “Rappaport’s Law forbids minors to own wands, except in schools, but my mother was insistent that we knew how to cast long before we were sent to Ilvermorny. She was a champion duelist, who trained the last three generations of Aurors for the MACUSA, and I think she rather saw the four of us as long-term trainees for most of our childhood. Go on, pick one up.”

“… Unicorns are real?” Credence said uncertainly.

“Of course they are,” Percival blinked. “There’s a herd of them in Prospect Park.”

“Of course,” he echoed faintly, and visibly shook himself from his surprise. After a moment, he picked up the beech wand. Percival carefully adjusted his grip with minimal contact, then directed him to face the opposite wall.

“What do I do?” Credence asked.

After a moment’s thought, Percival brought up his own wand—ebony, 15 inches, dragon heartstring—and demonstrated the simplest spell he knew. “ _Lumos_.” The tip flared to life, glowing a steady cool blue-white.

Credence swallowed as Percival gestured him to do the same.

“Just think of light. _Lumos_ to bring it, and then to put it out, _Nox._ ”

“Alright,” Credence replied quietly and brought the wand up to eyelevel. “ _Lumos._ ”

 

They tried the chestnut, and the walnut. Then the hazel, poplar, rowan, sycamore, English oak, red oak, pear, laurel, maple. Percival ran Credence through every single wand on the wall, even the finicky spruce and the hawthorn, but nothing worked. The closest they came to it was the pine, which gave a little shiver when Credence first picked it up, but then went as silent as the rest. Not a single wand in the entire collection gave so much as a flicker. They all worked fine for Percival— _lumos_ , and other spells too.

At first, Credence was uncertain, but as the string of disappointments went on, he soon adopted an expression of painful resignation. By the time Percival took away the exceedingly unusual hemlock, he had curled into himself again, arms folded tightly against his chest.

“Alright,” Percival said. “Let’s take some lunch.”

“I’m sorry,” Credence whispered bleakly, head hanging.

“Don’t be,” Percival said, herding him to the kitchen. “There are several reasons why none of the wands took. You might not be compatible with unicorn and dragon cores, for example. Jonkers does a good thunderbird and wampus core that might better suit.” He dug out a few squashed packets of sandwiches from Goldstein’s latest delivery and stacked them on the kitchen table, then fetched two cups of water. Credence didn’t look hungry, but he picked at a sandwich half-heartedly.

“Maybe he was right,” Credence said.

Scoffing, Percival resisted the urge to spit on the floor. “I’ve said before, you manifested an Obscurus. If you were a Squib, that would’ve been impossible. No, it’s something else. You’ve not channeled your magic in the usual way for so long, perhaps your body or your magic itself is resisting access.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Let me do some research and see what else we can try. In the meantime, I’ll give you some reading to familiarize yourself with ah, wizarding culture.”

 

His mother, on top of being an accomplished duelist, had been by nature of the work, well-versed in wandlore. She had several books on the subject and on magibiology stocked in the library, as well as a neat set of notes for nearly each volume. She had also been widely known for dismissing the whole range of scholarship as “mostly crock, some accidental spots of common sense.”  Tarquinia Van der Riejt Graves was much respected in the wizarding community, but considered highly eccentric in her own lifetime, to no one’s surprise.

Percival levitated an entire two rows from the top of the shelf and onto the library desk he’d taken for his own. He chose a small pile of books—Lavinia’s old charms text, a history of magical Manhattan, an ethnographic survey of the Northeastern Tribes and magic during the pre-Revolutionary era—and handed them over to Credence to do with them what he will. There was not much point in making the readings assignments, in any case. Percival had his own research to conduct, as well as more second-hand analyses of Grindelwald’s movements to peruse, which he did until well after dinner.

In fact, the only reliable time they spent together was in the mornings, when they converged in the dueling hall. Wands continued to be trouble for Credence, but spellwork was only half the battle after all. Fencing had the advantage of not only showing Credence proper footwork, but also basic principles of defense, not to mention correcting for that awful posture. Percival had no delusions about his own fencing skills—proficient, but inelegant. Nevertheless, he had more than enough experience training soldiers and Aurors, and Credence was perhaps an unusual student, but he was far from Percival’s worst trainees.

They did not speak much about anything not directly related to the task at hand. It was a relief, in some ways.  Percival did not like to think of those early days, when he was alone and speaking any passing thought aloud to his shadows, and Credence seemed inclined towards silence, though whether it was because of his nature or upbringing, it was hard to say. Thankfully, conversation about the proper magic use, that was easy to make. And so, Percival channeled his old instructors from Ilvermorny and the Aurors academy so that if Credence could not quite carry out a spell yet, he at least understood the theory and practice behind it.

That Credence had magic, there was no doubt. He had not, since his reappearance, dissolved into a vicious uncontrollable force of energy, but other signs were there, the usual sort often seen in magical children who hadn’t begun training yet—exploding tea cups, hot chocolate instead of water in the taps, and one night, Percival woke feeling distinctly odd. When he burst into Credence’s room, wand drawn, it was to find the young man deep asleep with his entire suite of furniture levitating a foot off the ground. With quick motions, Percival had gently directed everything back down to the ground and planted the furniture in place with the strongest sticking spells he knew before slipping back out of the room and back to his own bed.

So, the boy was certainly magic, and certainly beginning to manifest. The problem was, they were manifesting quickly and on a larger scale than a normal ten-year-old would be capable of. Research was slow and imprecise, and damnably biased towards Western European tradition—there did not seem to be a single text that did not stress the importance of wands or staffs in some form or other. Perhaps Goldstein had had the right idea; Percival imagined he might be glad to meet Newt Scamander after all.

But in the interim, there was work to be done, and Percival found himself trooping back to the greenhouse one bright morning to finish work on the glass. His sleep had been uneasy, and he’d finally left his bed around four in order to jot down a memo to Caetano regarding Grindelwald’s network along the Atlantic. He wondered if the department had found any leads to who had sheltered Grindelwald upon his arrival, and if forensics had pulled anything else from that Lower East Side tenement room. Those ponderings led to another set of instructions for the mid-year reviews which were quickly coming upon them, and which Percival would be unable to participate in, on account for his missing most of it. Finally, the sun had come up and though tired, Percival had been all too glad to return to work. It was early—Credence wouldn’t be down from his room until eight or so, which gave Percival at least two hours to slap some strengthening potion over the insides of the greenhouse.

 

The greenhouse had not changed much in the week since he’d last been in—still in need of plenty of work, but the algae had not grown back, and neither had the tentacula, though it was starting to put out new shoots again. Percival trimmed it back just to be safe, despite the impression it gave of pouting. He uncovered the barrel of strengthening potion and summoned a ladder from the tools shed, then carefully climbed to the top, levitating the barrel alongside him.

That was how Credence found him well after breakfast, slopping the potion along the glass dome at the center of the greenhouse with a brush and wiping the rest of it off his face and shoulders as it dripped.

“Morning,” he called down from his perch.

“I brought you breakfast,” Credence said. He was balancing a tray with a small pot of hot coffee and a neat pile of toast, cut into triangles and buttered. Percival apologized for having lost track of time. After climbing down, he cleared a space on the center work table gestured for Credence to pull up one of the metal stools stacked in the corner. There was still potion splattered all along his arms and front, despite the keep-clean spells he’d used so he went to the sink and gave his arms a good scrub. Then, because it was getting to be unbearably warm and humid inside the greenhouse, he stuck his head under the water to get the worst of the heat and grime off. Straightening up, he scrubbed a hand over his head. There was a jarring clatter as he wiped his face off with the edge of his shirt.

“Credence?”

“Um, just. The chairs. It’s- fine, I have them,” Credence babbled, pulling upright the fallen chair with an odd look that was fixed on the table. Percival raised an eyebrow—Credence looked a bit warm, but he was also wearing an old-fashioned suit of worsted wool in a greenhouse.

“Well, thank you for carting this out here,” Percival said, dragging the second stool catty corner to him.

 “Lotte said you would likely forget lunch as well if no one intervened.”

“Lotte should remember she's seventy years retired,” Percival said, busying himself with coffee. Now that food was before him, his hunger was making itself known.

“Is that normal, for wizards?” Credence asked politely.

“What, forgetting to eat?”

“To live on in portraits after death?”

Percival snorted. “Lotte’s not dead, she’s a hundred and ten and lives in California on a chicken farm with her grandniece. Portraits are only impressions of the subject. Lotte’s just happened to have made a forceful one.”

Credence took a few moments to absorb this information. “I'm not sure I'm cut out for this world,” he murmured, but he was smiling.

“You belong just fine,” Percival told him. “The world is a large place, you'd be surprised to find what's in it. How'd you get hot water? I didn't think I restocked the wood pile. “

Credence blinked, thrown by the sudden change in conversation. “I used the hot water tap. Was I not supposed to?”

Percival stared. “…I've mostly been using heating charms myself.” He didn't say that the manor’s original plumbing dated back to the early 1800s, and never had been equipped with a private water heater.

“Oh,” Credence said.  “I… thought… I've taken a bath, though,” He said uncertainly. “The water didn’t give me any trouble.”

Percival frowned. That was even less likely—he himself only ever used _aguamenti_ in the upstairs floor. “Credence,” he thrust the empty coffee pot at him and pointed to the greenhouse sink.  “Go fill this with hot water. “

Looking bemused and a little nervous, Credence took the coffee pot over and twisted the left handle, not realizing that the two handles were mostly for show, and brought up the same cold water from the well. He filled the pot and then returned to the table, Percival watching him like a hawk. “Is that enough?”

The coffee pot was gently steaming through the spout.  When Percival held his hand over the sides, he could feel the heart radiating though the metal.

“Well, now,” he said softly. “Mr. Barebone, you've been doing magic. Proper, deliberate works of magic, all along. How about that?”

 

“I suppose you weren’t going to do things the usual way,” Percival said contemplatively. After the little excitement of the morning, reality had returned and the truth was, Percival had about a third of the main greenhouse glass taken care of, with another two wings to handle, so he’d climbed back up while Credence watched from below.

“I had no idea one could do spells without a wand,” Credence said. “I figured, it was always attached somehow.”

“Sure, but wandless magic is a difficult but learnable skill, and silent magic as well.” Percival demonstrated with a wave—a paintbrush skidded down a pane of glass, following the motion of his hand. “You are the oldest Obscurial in known history, so this is all unknown territory.

Credence looked skeptical.

“Let’s try something else.”  Percival gestured around him. “Talk to your magic,” he said. “Negotiate with it.”

“Talk? Out loud, you mean?” Credence said dubiously. “Like, ‘make the water hot?’”

“I imagine intent it is the other half of it,” Percival replied, dragging the potion across the glass. “For example, this glass.”

“Glass, sir?” Credence, chin propped on one hand watched him curiously.

“Glass is a slow-moving liquid,” Percival said, walking the ladder over to a fresh section of glass. “It’s viscous in nature; over the course of years, it slowly gathers at the bottom of its frame while growing thinner at the top. It’s why the glass ripples in older windows, see?”

“But what has that to do with magic?” Credence asked.

“Intent,” he replied. “Belief. Confidence, too. People forget that to perform magic, it helps to believe that it works.”

It was easier to show than tell though, so Percival laid down the paint brush and regarded the stretch of glass still to be covered with potion. This time, the magic was easier to grasp—his words flowed smoothly as he reminded the glass of their origins, from the vaunted foundries of the magical glassmaker Galaxio Toso, where they were meticulously built of sand and lightning. He urged them to recall their strength and pride, without need of any potions or spells.

As he spoke, magic thrumming through his words, the glass before him shone clear and bright under the sun. The surface shivered, rippling across the row of glass panes wave-like. Like it was being pushed by an invisible hand, the warping of the glass slowly smoothed into flat, flawless surfaces. A soft, almost musical chiming lingered in the air after the spoken spell had finished. Percival reached out and tapped the pane closest to him.  Then, he reared back and slammed his fist against it. It didn’t so much as crack. He grinned down at Credence, and knocked on the glass again.

“Intent.”

There was an art to the true spoken traditions of the Woodland Cree, and that of the many tribes and civilizations the world over who relied primarily on speech. Properly done, there was little it couldn’t accomplish—raise a fully furnished temple from bedrock, bring rain and sun no matter the season. But it was an entirely different way of life, one that Percival could only approximate the faintest of its possibilities. In fact, he knew just enough to communicate the idea behind it, as his mother had done for him and his sisters.  

Now, outside in the warm spring afternoon, they wandered through the half-wild rose garden while Percival began explaining that rudimentary understanding to Credence.

“You don’t use it for police work, do you?” Credence asked after listening carefully.

“It’s not as effective, and it takes time, patience,” Percival shrugged. “It requires… knowledge, as well. A full understanding of the context, perhaps. It’s easier when you are familiar with the target, because half the task is convincing whatever it is to do what you want it to do.”

Credence looked uncertain. “I’m not very good at… talking.”

Percival raised his eyebrows and glanced at his companion. “Credence, one thing you learn when you get to my age is that rarely are any of us good at anything naturally. It comes with practice. It is the same with magic, in any form, and it certainly is the same with talking.” They trekked back towards the house. “And you talk fine.”

“You make it easier,” Credence admitted.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Percival replied, surprised.

“It’s just,” Credence continued helplessly, a little flushed, “You don’t… _know_ me, and you don’t expect of me what- what I can’t give or- or don’t understand.”

Percival was silent for a long moment. “Well,” he finally said mildly. “I’m afraid that I do expect excellence from my pupils. I hope that is not too difficult.”

Credence, still looking away into the distance, smiled and shook his head. “No.”

 

Credence stood before the rack of wands in the dueling hall, and fixed his gaze on the closest one at eyelevel, a pale, polished strip of wood that smelled faintly of cedar. His hands were clenched nervously at his sides, but his expression was determined.

“ _Lumos_ ,” he said. There was a brief spark from the tip, a slight scent of smoke and cordite but the wand stayed resolutely inert.

“Better. Remember,” Percival said off to the side. “Intent. Belief. Confidence. The magic is there. It will respond. Try it again.

Credence closed his eyes briefly and breathed deeply. When he looked up, he was clear eyed. “ _Lumos,_ ” he said again.

This time, brilliant light flooded the hall, making both occupants throw up their hands and step away. On the wall, every single wand tip shone like a star, a steady light that chased the shadows into nothing.

And to Percival, it seemed that Credence’s expression, lit against that magical glow, was brighter than them all.

 

* * *

 

 

Once Credence finally overcame his doubts, his magic sparked just about any wand he touched. It seemed like a faucet had been turned on full—magic fair seeped from his pores. The carpeting down the hall smoothed itself under his feet, and books in the library fair vibrated whenever he stepped inside. The next time he attempted to heat a kettle of water, the kitchen nearly caught on fire. Years and years of repression and oppression had morphed his magic into something ugly and destructive and wildly chaotic; as he’d reintegrated and channeled that magic back into his body, it seemed the sheer power had remained.

One morning, Percival was awakened by the heady sweet fragrance of summer roses. He opened his eyes to find his window crowded with lush red roses in full bloom from the suddenly overgrown rose garden half an acre down the lawn. He supposed the young wizard may as well put that enormous power to good use.

Credence had chosen to use the cedar wand, the first one to have caught his light, and as they experimented, it became clear that while the wood was a decent fit, the wand itself would not be sufficient.

“Wands tend to amplify,” Percival said as he directed Credence in blasting away the overgrown rose bushes. “You are too powerful, so you’ll need to look for one that concentrates and directs.”

“I don’t know if I feel powerful,” Credence said, grimacing as he deflected flying debris with a shield charm—one of the first spells Percival had taught him. “Just a bit seasick, mostly.”

“The only way to get used to magic is to keep using it. Once you finish pruning the bushes down, I’ll see you in the dueling hall,” Percival said, and left him to it.

 

Percival was no academic or educator, but he had put his fair share of rookies through their paces. So Credence learned defensive and offensive magic, and he learned the best stance to brace himself against attacks, and the proper approaches in engaging with hostiles while protecting as much of himself as possible. The other, less warlike spells were taught much more haphazardly, mostly on an as needed basis. Credence performed the spells satisfactorily, but seemed to enjoy the casting of them better than the purpose. And outside of the dueling hall and specified tasks, he often resorted to No-Maj tactics—Percival came downstairs one morning to find him sweeping a broken plate up on his hands and knees despite having just learned a cleaning spell the day before. Had Credence’s overflow of magic not been such an issue, Percival would have left it be; as it was, he began drawing up lists of mundane tasks for Credence to carry out with a wand on a schedule.  It put Percival in mind of being back in the camps during war, but it was effective. Credence took to the tactic easily—Percival had the uncomfortable suspicion that he was not unfamiliar to militant regimens. The problem was making sure he remembered use of his wand. Though they had found an old sleeve holster for his training wand, Credence had yet to accustom himself to relying on it. Thus, it was not altogether a surprise to walk into the kitchen and find all the cabinet empty and doors open, and the entire contents of the estimable Graves family china neatly stacked on every inch of available table surface and floors, and Credence, trapped on all sides by Juno Dearborn Graves’ formal gold-dusted state dinner service, looking quite flustered.

“Accio gone wrong?” Percival drawled, but his lips were twitching. Credence jerked up to look at him and smiled ruefully.

“I suppose I should have been more specific,” he said.

Percival, leaning against the door jamb, gestured with his free hand. Shaking his head, Credence drew his wand and began sending the china back onto the shelves, one neat pile at a time.

“You’re amused,” Percival observed. Credence huffed and smiled.

“Modesty, she hated washing dishes, probably more than Mother hated magic. I was just thinking how pleased she’d be if we had been able to do this instead.” With one last swish of the wand, the final set of plates floated gently back onto the shelves. He stepped forward and closed the cabinet firmly.

“Do you miss her?” Percival asked as he led them from the kitchen. They had spoken of Modesty before; the girl had exhibited no signs of magic, and so she’d been obliviated and placed with a foster family. By all accounts, she was being treated well, and was flourishing. But it also meant that Credence would not likely see her again.

“Yes, but less than I expected,” Credence admitted. “It helps to know that she’s … safe. Where are we going?”

They had bypassed the nursery entrance and continued down one of the long, nameless corridors that twisted through the manor. Here, the wallpaper was a little more faded, the air a little dustier. “The East Wing. It used to house guestrooms and a tennis court, but most of it has been closed down for years.”

“Why?”

“An infestation of termites, if you would believe. They kept chewing through the walls and the wards,” Percival said. “We ended up fumigating it one season and it just never was reopened.”

“Are we playing tennis today?” Credence asked with furrowed brow.

“Not so much. I figured you might be keen to try a different kind of magic,” Percival said with a smile, and pushed open the door to an immense open air court with a high arched magical dome that was nearly transparent against the cloudless sky. The ground was firm and slightly springy, with white lines painting circles on either end, and a red line bisecting the court.

“I am afraid your skills and powers aren’t up for Apparition just yet, and while the undersubway will take you to various corners of the Sixth Borough, there’s nothing quite like this,” Percival told him. When Credence looked mystified, Percival smirked.

“ _Accio_ brooms!”

Two Silver Arrows sprang from their holding racks and zipped towards them. Percival grabbed both as they neared and tossed one to Credence.

“Mr. Graves,” Credence said slowly, “do witches really fly on brooms?”

Percival gestured. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Credence stared at the broom in his hand with something like skepticism. “I am positive I walk in dreams,” he declared.

“Oh, now,” Percival said, swinging his leg over his own and kicking off to hover six feet above the ground. “There’s no need to be hysterical. You’ve come this far, after all.”

Credence looked at him with deep incredulity, but Percival didn’t pay him any mind as he tested the stirrups and cushioning charms, swinging side-saddle to adjust a few bristles before resuming proper position. He hadn’t flown on a broom in almost a year—it was hard, in Manhattan, to take the broom up. You could always use a notice-me-not or invisibility spell, but the MACUSA regulations about flying over dense populations made it more hassle than a few hours joyriding was worth. The last time he’d flown had been part of an Auror assignment that led them to rural Pennsylvania. He instructed Credence on how to mount the broom and to kick off, and was pleased to see that the broom responded beautifully to Credence’s words. And though the young man was rather shaky on the initial ascent, he managed to keep his seat even as the ground fell away from them.

“This is mad,” Credence said breathlessly, but he was smiling, smiling so hard it probably hurt.

“You’re barely seated,” Percival said. “Let’s have some speed first before we get too excited, eh?” He set off at a lazy clip, feeling the breeze ruffling his hair and clothes. After a moment, Credence followed. They looped the pitch at a gentle pace, Percival calling out suggestions and Credence correcting for posture and positioning. By the third loop, he was sitting more confidently, and still grinning.

Percival lifted an eyebrow. “Think you can keep up?”

A flash of uncertainty crossed Credence’s face, but it was chased by determination and excitement; he nodded shortly.

“Good boy,” Percival said, and streaked off down the court.

They flew, around the pitch in faster and faster loops, the sun warmed air streaming past them. Percival was pleased to see Credence keep up decently—the longer he flew, the less forced his posture was, until he was almost keeping abreast with Percival. They caught glances, and Percival cocked his head in silent question. When Credence nodded, he grinned and pulled _up._ The dome that encased the pitch was flexible, spelled to adapt to a Quidditch seeker’s height or a particularly vertical Quodpot play. Percival urged his broom up higher and higher until the entire Graves estate was visible, from the rose garden and greenhouse to where the carriage path wound out to the main road, the pitch itself a perfect rectangle of glittering green. He hovered there under the sun, drinking in the sight the manor below, the river a silver-gray expanse winding past to the west. The sight had been a common one when he was a child, but it was still magnificent to see after all these years.

“How are you feeling?” Percival asked. He glanced at Credence and was arrested by the sight of the young man’s expression—a high flush along his cheekbones and his black, curling hair tousled, radiating such open joy and fervent wonder that tears had gathered in his eyes.

Credence pressed his mouth together and shook his head. He laughed and pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. “It’s wonderful,” he marveled. “This is—this is wonderful.”

Percival realized he was smiling as well and coughed hastily. “You’re welcome to take the brooms out flying anytime you like,” he said looking away and drew the point of his finger in a wide half-arc. “The estate covers about 80 acres, west along the river, and up around north, just to that jut of rock there, and across until the main road. It’s not a vast area for flying, but it’s safe, and you won’t be seen.”

“ _Mr. Graves_ ,” Credence said, and Percival smiled.

“Percival will do,” he replied, then slowly, he leaned further and further back until he was pointed back down towards earth and falling in tight, breath-stealing spirals, watching the manor rise up to meet him in a fierce, head-spinning rush while his heart thumped in bone-shaking time.

 

They stayed in the air for a while longer, Percival showing Credence various techniques—how to steer without hands, and to cast without losing one’s balance.

“There’s proper gear in the lockers,” Percival told him as they lazily descended to the pitch. “If you ever want to learn Quidditch. I don’t think we have any proper quaffles for Quodpot—they tend to get a bit volatile in long-term storage.”

“Maybe next time,” Credence said wistfully as he set his feet back on firm ground. He winced as he straightened up.

“We’ll set you up with some Salubrious Bath Salts, else you’ll be feeling it tomorrow,” Percival chuckled.

From within the manor, there was a faint noise, a door closing, perhaps. Frowning, Percival handed off the brooms to Credence.

“Hang these back up please, and fetch the wax in that closet over there. There should be some rags as well, if you want to start on giving them a bit of polish. I’ll be right back.”

Credence glanced at the door and nodded. Percival drew his wand and approached the door. He peered back down the long, dim hallway. It was quiet. He silently tossed a scanning spell into the hall and watched as the blue glow flickered across the floor and out of sight. If there were any intruders, the light would race back in red. For a tense moment, Percival waited, but no light appeared. He kept his wand up and stepped forward.

A scream startled him from his position; Percival whirled around and charged towards the locker room.

“Credence!” he shouted as he rounded the corner, and pulled to an abrupt stop.

Credence was on the ground, his back against the wall and his knees crooked tight. His face was gray, and his eyes were fixed on the looming figure before them. It was, Percival realized in shocked horror, himself.

But himself, of a year ago, with hair still dark, dressed in a pristinely tailored suit, and wearing an expression of wicked malevolence.

“Hello, Credence,” not-him purred. “Well, well. Look at you. You’re almost a real wizard, boy. But _almost_ doesn’t quite cut it in this world.”

“Stay back,” Percival growled. “ _Disentegra_!”

But not-Percival blocked it easily, and turned his attention to Percival with a sharp, wolfish grin. And as he laughed, the color began bleeding from his features and his hair, lightening into that pale, colorless blond that was so ingrained in Percival’s memories. A moment later, Gellert Grindelwald was standing before them. A tinny ringing began sounding in the back of Percival’s ears.

“Oh, my, Director, you thought I wouldn’t find you?” Grindelwald shook his head in mock sympathy. “I’ve known for weeks, my good man. You have never left my sight, you and that darling little _Obscurial._ You know, I had observed you for a good amount of time before I… stepped into your life. A little bare, perhaps, but noble, I thought. Admirable, even, your dedication to this… mockery of a sniveling, cowardly wizarding community. But I realized in these past few days, I was spectacularly wrong. I was thinking about it all the wrong way. Oh no, no, no. No, my dear Director Graves, your existence is pathetic isn’t it? So pathetic that you didn’t even realize why your life is so sad and small and dark, until no one realized that you were missing, and that it wasn’t you at your desk. And why should they? When was the last time someone cared for you, paid you any attention apart from work? A misanthropic, irascible, old drunk like you. Your sisters haven’t come home in years. You have no friends. In fact, you’re so alone, that you’ve even let yourself believe that this boy, this poor child, who has no real choice in the matter, might care that you live or die. Why should he? What was your plan, show him a few charmed baubles, some glittery magical delight, and he’d be so grateful as to care for you?” Grindelwald’s voice was silky and razor-sharp, his words cut like ice into Percival’s lungs. “What a glorious joke,” Grindelwald laughed. “Killing you would be exquisite mercy, for you most of all—”

“ _Riddikulus!”_

Grindelwald snorted in surprise as a gray elephant’s trunk sprang from his face and swung heavily against his chest with a heavy smack.

Percival sprang into motion, raising his wand and blasting the boggart back into the open closet and slamming the doors shut with a spell.

In the sudden silence of the locker room, only harsh breathing was audible.

“Well,” someone said thoughtfully. “That was a remarkably articulate specimen of boggart if I ever saw one.” A man in a bright blue coat lowered his wand and tucked it back into his pocket. He was toting a battered leather suitcase and had a head of messy, ruddy curls. At his side stood Porpentina Goldstein, looking rather grim herself.

“Newt Scamander,” the stranger volunteered after another moment of silence. “Hullo, Director. It’s good to meet you. The real you, that is. Hullo, Credence. You’re looking much better.”

Scamander peered at Percival briefly, his gaze skittering over him quickly and latching onto Credence who had pushed himself shakily to his feet. The young man stared back at Percival, wide-eyed and uncertain. Percival cleared his throat and looked away. His heart was still racing and there was a numbness in his limbs.

“Goldstein,” he said, and was unable to think of anything else. But good old Goldstein, she firmed her chin and gave him a curt nod.

Without looking at anyone else, Percival brushed past the rest of them and disappeared back into the house.

 

The famed liquor cabinet of his grand-aunt and grand-uncle Theodora and Davidos was housed in a handsome mahogany case that sat beside the bar cart in the sitting room. There was no key, but it was warded to those of the Graves bloodline, if only because Theodora had also been an accomplished chemist and had a fondness for flavoring her after dinner port with unusual and sometimes poisonous mixtures. In recognition of the dangers, the centerpiece of the bar cart was a glass-encased bezoar.

The best place for drinking though, was not the sitting room, but above the rounded apse of the atrium. At the end of the second-floor hallway, one could climb out the window and with careful balance, travel along one of the lower support beams of the buttresses, down to the exposed roof of the atrium, where the buttresses and other architectural quirks formed a small, makeshift balcony of stone and glass. Percival had clambered up on the roofs with his sisters when they were young and wild, carefree and careless and reliant only on their natural balance to keep them from falling off the ledges thirty feet down. Now, Percival felt distinctly old as he sat along the roof of the atrium, hugged on either side by hard, gray arches. He’d brought Firewhiskey up with him, but hadn’t made much use of it. It sat just behind him, well within reach.

It was quiet, looking out west. Beyond the acres and acres of slowly greening spring was the gray-blue river, and beyond that the distant shore of cliffs and mountains. The silence made it easier to hear when someone came up to the second-floor window and hesitantly climbed onto the roof as well.

“It seems like I’m forever storming out on you, Goldstein,” Percival said with a lightness he did not particularly feel.

“You know you can call me Tina, Director,” she replied bluntly. “Otherwise you’re just proving that boggart’s point.” She sat down gingerly beside him.

“I didn’t come up here to talk about that,” he said. “I didn’t ask for company either.”

“Well, we only have this opportunity to exchange news, sir. I’m afraid I’ve got to get back to the city soon, and we’ve got some ground to cover.”

Percival sighed. “Very well.”

“Do you want to do this inside?” she asked, eyeing the bottle askance.

“Aurors make do,” he said.

Goldstein—Tina, he supposed—rolled her eyes but didn’t protest. “Mr. Scamander will be staying this week,” she said instead, and he glared hard. “It’s not my call, sir. The president thought it might be wisest to allow him as much access to Credence as he could for evaluation. I suspect she also doesn’t want his… luggage anywhere near the city, either.”

“After the mess in his wake last time, I don’t blame her,” he said.

“To be fair,” she said sharply, “Grindelwald was already in the thick of things. Which brings me to the next point—we’ve received word that Grindelwald might still be in the city.”

Percival looked over sharply at that. “He’s returned?”

“Possibly never even left,” Tina confirmed, and Percival felt black, black rage threaten to overwhelm his senses.

“What is being done?” he asked after a long pause.

Tina seemed relieved he hadn’t lost his temper, and they talked department business for the next half hour. Then, Tina handed him a new set of instructions from Tiburon. Percival’s exile would end at the end of the week, whereupon he would be free to return back to the city. Tina had a Portkey for him to use, as well as updates about the security measures that had been taken on the townhouse. Moreover, the official reason for Scamander’s return was to consult on the use of magical beasts in screening the Woolwsorth building—in case anyone, such as Grindelwald, tried again to infiltrate the building.

After all that, there was nothing left but for Tina to bring up what Percival had wished to avoid discussing.

“…I noticed the garden in open rebellion,” Tina said. “Magical overflow?”

Percival made a vague gesture. “He grew the rose bushes from the garden to the walls overnight.”

She raised her eyebrow at that. “Unconsciously?”

“I think that’s safe to say. He barely remembers to wear his wand during the day,” Percival told her. “At first, he could only affect wandless magic.”

She blinked at him. “That’s unusual.”

He snorted. “Plenty of populations the world over doesn’t use wands. But yes, it was unexpected. I imagine he had to feel the form of our magical system before it would go the usual way.”

“You make it sound easy,” she said, “But judging from the state of the library, you have done your research, sir.”

“Yes, well, this isn’t about me,” he said.

She peered at him curiously. “It isn’t?”

“it never was, Tina,” he said, passing a hand wearily over his face.

In the brief pause that followed, she reached behind him and plucked up the whiskey. He watched her warily, but she just drank from it and offered the bottle to him. He took it after a moment and did the same.

“I think you’ve done enormous work, sir,” she said contemplatively. “He wasn’t supposed to be here at all, flying broomsticks and growing rosebushes. At worst, he would’ve been contained… captured and studied, or experimented on. At best, well.” She grimaces. “Grindelwald has left many bodies in his wake. No one would have missed his absence.”

Percival wanted to protest this, but he knew it was true; until he was forced, he had barely given a second thought to the young man mentioned in the reports, writing him off as just another victim of Grindelwald’s ruthlessness. Now, the young man had a name, Credence, and a face, and habits like cutting toast into triangles and sneaking in fresh flowers for Cecily in the portraits hall.

“That would have been a very great shame,” he said quietly. “Grindelwald’s a fool.”

“Because he underestimated him,” Tina said.

“Among other reasons,” Percival said, but didn’t care to elaborate.

She glanced at him briefly. “The president is concerned about keeping Credence in America,” she said. “She thinks that as long as he’s here, Grindelwald won’t give up.”

“He’s got plenty to occupy him,” he scoffed. “Eastern Europe, Northern Africa. _Germany_.”

“But he’s not _there,_ ” she reminded. “And he knows he’s _here_. With _you.”_ She looked at him meaningfully until the penny dropped.

Percival closed his eyes briefly. “…Ah.” He cleared his throat. “I assume… he will fall into the care of Mr. Scamander?”

Tina nodded. “Newt’s offered to take him back to England. There is a Hogwarts professor there, Albus Dumbledore. He’s offered Credence his protection.”

“And this… Dumbledore is strong enough?”

“According to the reports and rumors, he’s the one wizard in the world that Grindelwald’s afraid of,” she said.

Percival’s jaw was clenched tight. He forced himself to relax and nodded shortly. “Very well. Have they made travel arrangements yet?”

“The end of the week,” she admitted. “They’ll come with you back into the city and catch the next ship out.”

“And Credence knows?”

Tina nodded.

“Good.” Percival slowly levered himself to his feet, ruthlessly quashing the complicated well of emotion bubbling up under his ribs.

“He doesn’t want to go, sir,” she said in a rush. “He doesn’t want to leave you.”

“He’s a boy who’s barely seen anything yet.” His tone was harsher than he’d intended. “He doesn’t know what he wants.” Without waiting for Tina’s response, Percival ducked back through the second story window and disappeared into the manor.

 

The new houseguest was odd and a little twitchy, which irritated Percival’s Auror instincts. He also disliked that the battered old luggage was in fact an enormous menagerie of some of the most dangerous creatures in the magical world. However, with Picquery’s explicit, if grudging approval, Percival just showed him to the Peony Room and left him to it, ignoring the curious stare that trailed him out of the room.

Credence was waiting for him in the hall, leaning up against the wallpaper and so still that Percival almost walked by without noticing at first. They stopped and regarded each other silently, until Percival inclined his head.

It was cool outdoors, now that the sun was settling low over the horizon, but after a few minutes of walking, Credence cast a warming spell and seemed quietly pleased when Percival nodded approvingly.

“I find myself compelled to apologize once more,” Percival said. “It was not my intention to… leave so abruptly. I trust Mr. Scamander and Auror Goldstein were able to explain what happened?”

“They called it a... bogey?”

“Boggart. Non-living shapeshifters that manifest as one’s greatest fears.” Percival kept his words clipped but it did not stop him from hearing the boggart hideous voice echoing the words he kept so deep inside.

Credence nodded absently. “Mr. Scamander said the only way to dispel it is through laughter.” He took a deep breath and darted a small smile at Percival. “Sounds like the lesson in a fable.”

“Laugh in the face of your greatest fears,” Percival mused. “I feel it’s something I may need more training in.”

“Start small,” Credence suggested. “Laugh at spiders.”

“Tall buildings.”

“Snakes.”

“Holes.”

“Holes?” Credence laughed.

“You’d be surprised. I had a colleague who eventually left the academy because there was an old wasps nest outside of the main entrance that no one ever bothered to clean up.” Percival shrugged.

“Not wasps?”

“Oh, no, the wasps were long gone. The nest remained though, and it was, well. Full of holes.” They had wandered into the rose garden, which was still looking a little feral for polite society. Personally, Percival rather liked the overgrown look—better than the half-dead bushes that had greeted him when he’d first arrived. The magical roses had been cut back in size, but ran in heavy green tangles along the arches that formed a central path through the garden, and hung in great blooming bunches from the trellises, twisted around dripping blossoms of wisteria. The magic-infused roses scented the evening air with sweet perfume; Percival found himself checking on the bushes for any signs of stress, but they seemed to be doing well.

“These are a little early,” Percival told Credence. “But they’ve always fared better around magic, and I imagine you were somewhat of a booster. In contrast, you see those bushes over there?” he pointed to a corner of the rose garden that seemed much more sedate. “Those No-Maj bushes only bloom in the fall, but my grandfather Ophideon always said their roses made them worth the trouble. Smaller, sweeter, and surprisingly resilient. I think he’d be pleased with how far they’ve come, all things considered.”

“I should like to see them bloom,” Credence said cautiously, peering uncertainly at Percival.

“Someday,” Percival agreed easily. “I should bring in an actual gardener before the summer’s out. These bushes need a bit more than what I can provide, especially since we’re closing up the manor again in a week.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Credence confessed. He immediately looked embarrassed.

“You can’t hide here forever,” Percival pointed out. “Neither can I.”

“I know that, but,” he folded his arms tightly against himself. “It’s not that. I… Mr. Scamander wants me to go with him, to England.”

“I’ve heard. It sounds like a good opportunity for you, to learn more about your magic in a safe environment. I don’t know much about this Dumbledore fellow,” Percival frowned, “but he’s made enough of a stir with the Brits that even _The Ghost_ has started carrying some of his writings.”

“I’d rather learn from you,” Credence insisted. “I want to stay in New York. I’m doing better now, aren’t I? With magic?”

“Credence,” Percival said, turning to look at him straight on. “You’ve been a goddamned miracle.”

“Then why are you sending me away?” he said miserably.

“Is that what you think?” Percival said. “It’s not safe for you in New York. Grindelwald is still a significant danger, and he’s already been bold enough to infiltrate the MACUSA, to destroy Irongate, in a bid to find you. Now that he knows you’re still here, it’s only a matter of time that tries again.”

“I know that, but if that’s the case I’d rather stand with you and fight him,” Credence pleaded. “Please.”

Percival was already shaking his head. “No. No, that’s out of the question. You need to stay as far away from him as possible,” he said. “It’s possible he may lose interest, when he realizes you aren’t an Obscurial anymore, but no one wants to take those chances. Credence, listen to me. Go with Mr. Scamander, and learn from Albus Dumbledore. See the world, now that you have the chance.”

But the young man shook his head, lips pressed tightly together. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I can learn here, I can—find a tutor, or go to- to that school in Massachusetts. I don’t _care_ about the rest of the world.”

“And that’s exactly why you should go,” Percival cut in sharply. “Even if you stayed, do you expect things to stay the same? I’ll go back to my job, which eats up twelve hours of my day. Your education will fall by the wayside, because it will never be a priority. Your safety will be impossible to secure unless you’re confined to the house. You’ll come to learn what sort of person I truly am—yes, Credence. Did you think you’ve come to know me? In this country home, in exile? That boggart wasn’t wrong. I am irascible, and short-tempered, and I am impatient. I don’t like people hanging about. I will always put my job first, at the expense of my relationships. I drink far too much, far too often. You will realize that what happened here, this is the unusual. You will come to regret your choice, and in the end, you’ll wish you had left when you had the chance.” Percival turned away, wrestling with the urge to set something aflame.

Credence stared at him in silence, betrayed.

“Please don’t send me away,” he finally whispered, his voice cracking, and Percival felt his sternum twist and splinter around those words. He wanted—oh, what he _wanted_.

“I wish I didn’t have to,” he admitted quietly.

Credence made a wounded noise. “Then _why?”_

“Because it wouldn’t be right for me to keep you here,” Percival said, honest and raw.

The young man brought both hands to his face, pressing the heels of his palm into against his eyes. He made a strangled sound in his throat, but twisted out of reach when Percival reached out tentatively. Instead, he turned his back and began striding, stiff-legged, from the garden. Behind, Percival stared impassively at the arched trellis of roses, watching the thorns grow before his eyes into long, piercing stilettos on the vine.

 

“Director,” Scamander called from down the hall. Percival, who had been walking to the shed behind the carriage house, paused reluctantly. In the week since Scamander’s arrival, Percival had largely kept to himself. It was both easier and harder than he expected to return to a semi-solitary existence. There were no more morning training sessions in the dueling hall—he’d waited for an hour in the hall the morning after the rose garden before realizing that Credence would not be joining him, and he hadn’t returned since then. Scamander himself tended to keep to himself. He mostly worked from his room, in the infamous suitcase of magical beasts, and occasionally wandered into the library to browse the texts on the magical fauna of North America. From the state of the kitchen, the occasional drifts of conversation Percival heard coming from Scamander’s room or the sitting room, it seemed that their guest had fully taken on his duties of evaluating and mentoring Credence. The thought made something ugly and acid prickle under his skin, but Percival did what he always had when faced with an uncomfortable situation—work.

Percival had spent most of his waking hours in the library or greenhouse in the past week, alternately catching up on paperwork and unleashing his frustration on the weeds. That was the problem with establishing a pattern, Percival thought resignedly. People know where to find you. For a brief moment, he considered pointedly ignoring Scamander, but that would’ve been churlish. He waited for Scamander to catch up with him before he pulled open the shed and began stacking his gardening gear back in place.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Scamander?” he asked gruffly, hanging the shears from the hook and stripping the gardening gloves from his arms.

“I wanted to have a word with you,” Scamander said, looking around the shed curiously. “Is that dragon pearl?” He veered suddenly toward the shelves where a glass jar containing a white powdery substance sat.

“Is that your question?” Percival raised an eyebrow, but Scamander ignored his withering tone and carefully examined the contents of the jar.

“My word,” he muttered. “There must be at least two thousand galleons worth in here.”

“More like two thousand Dragots. It’s from the Atlantic Blue Tail, which is cheaper than the Imperial Silver pearls.,” Percival said. It didn’t seem to deter Scamander in the slightest.

“May I…?” he asked absently, already unscrewing the top. Percival sighed and waved him on. Scamander sniffed the contents. He breathed gently over the contents and a small, miniature cloud formed at the lip of the jar, flashing blue-white. It rose slowly out of the jar and drifted up to the roof. “Yes, there’s the color.” He murmured to himself, addressing it seemed his own lapel at times. “The quality is excellent.”

“Mr. Scamander,” Percival said loudly and the man in question jerked up and froze, looking not unlike some of the animals he kept.

“Oh yes, Director.” He closed the jar and set it carefully back on the shelf, and turned a wary eye on Percival.

Percival felt no need to put him at ease. He crossed his arms and used the most of his height and eyebrows to discourage Mr. Scamander from sticking around. It was not to be. Scamander may have looked a bit unreliable, but he also seemed perfectly oblivious to threats to his person.

“I wanted to ask you about Credence,” Scamander said.

“Without him present?”

“I told him I was coming to speak with you, and he thought it better I do so alone.”

That stung a little more than Percival expected, but seeing as how they had all barely been in the same room together in the past week, he was more resigned than anything else.

“Very well,” he sighed.

Scamander peppered him with questions about his interactions with the Obscurus while Percival set the shed to rights and pulled together a container of slow acting fertilizer for the tentacula. Scamander wanted to know when Percival had first noticed the Obscurus, and what effect it had on him. He asked Percival about instances when the full-fledged Obscurus was able to manifest and wasn’t put off when Percival replied that it was still under investigation so he couldn’t tell him. Instead, Scamander pointed out that he was very much part of the Barebone case, and besides, there wasn’t much point to withholding information about an old American case anyhow; he’d be off to England again by the end for the week. So Percival grudgingly recounted as much of the past events as he could. Scamander was not usually talkative, except it seemed when conducting research, in which case his murmuring was only occasionally directed at Percival, the majority instead to some dictation spell. He trailed Percival out of the shed absently and back to the greenhouse where he poked around the surviving plant specimens while Percival did his best to ignore him.

“You have a Mimsy moss,” Scamander said happily. “And it’s been left alone for fifteen years, you say? It’s propagated quite well, considering.”

“You’re welcome to it,” Percival grunted. He was busy wrestling the recalcitrant tentacula into submission so that he could apply the fertilizer. It was an irritating chore from his end, a delightful physical challenge for the tentacula. He nearly fell for its feint right and narrowly escaped getting bitten. “Chances are it’ll be another fifteen before any one tends to it again, and they’ve gone rogue.”

Indeed, the Mimsy moss, usually a pale and listless green, was showing signs of emerald and, daringly enough, a streak of chartreuse, in its shallow container.

“I’ve got a breeding pair of Borogove birds that might take to this,” Scamander said, stroking a soft patch the moss, which instantly withered into a dead looking patch.

Percival managed to stun the tentacula into temporary submission and began slopping fertilizer into its container. “Mr. Scamander, is there anything else I can help you with today?”

Scamander cocked his head at him, bird-like himself. “What is that?” he pointed.

Percival followed the direction of his finger, craving his head over his shoulder until he spotted the bowl of algae, charmed from the glass walls. He told him so, with a touch of irritation and waved him to it as Scamander examined the contents closely, gently tapping spells over the top of the bowl.

While Percival was moving on to the desert room with the slow-releasing nutrient mix for the remaining cacti housed inside, Scamander fussed over the bowl of algae like it was some particularly rare breed of unicorn. Percival returned to Scamander’s bright, unblinking gaze waiting for him, the fishbowl of algae in his lap.

“What is it you used to collect this?” he asked.

Percival blinked, surprised he was still there. “A spell,” he said. When Scamander waited, unblinking, he frowned. “A spoken technique that doesn’t rely on wands,” he added, “based off the speak-sing traditions of the northeastern tribes.”

The look of interest in Scamander’s eye gleamed. “Can you describe this spell for me?”

Percival hitched up against his work table and explained curtly the spell he’d used to gather the algae.

Scamander looked back down at the algae. “Yes,” he muttered. “That could account for it.”

“Account for what,” Percival said flatly.

With a quick movement, Scamander slid the bowl back to its place and whirled upright. “Credence, of course,” he said, and began strolling from the greenhouse with the air of having solved a mystery to his satisfaction.

“Hold on,” Percival said, bolting after him. “What do you mean, Credence? What has that got to do with him?”

Scamander glanced back at him briefly over the shoulder. “Your gathering spell,” he said. “I hypothesize that it was a focal point for Credence to return to his human form once more, coupled with the greenhouses, perhaps. It’s a very exciting possibility, which I hope will have wider application. I’ll need to do more research; do you mind if I make use of your library?”

“Wait,” Percival said, rubbing his temple with his thumb. “Stop. You’re saying… I brought Credence back?”

“It’s a very difficult question to answer, Director,” Scamander said blithely. “Perhaps, you helped? Just a smidge? Or maybe your spell was a catalyst. There are several factors, but I think that if we are to look at this holistically, we might see a few broad lines of logic.”

“By all means, Mr. Scamander,” Percival said, “please walk me through your logic,” and nearly overshot him when Scamander drew to a full stop.

“There’s not much understood about the Obscurus, as you well know,” he told Percival. “But there is much to understand about _Credence_. And it is wise to view them as, ultimately, one being. The Obscurus arises from the wizard’s circumstances, not an outside force; I imagine, to an extent, it reflects on its human host’s consciousness as well. In this case, the Obscurus, though weakened after the MACUSA’s attacks, drew towards the one strong attachment in Credence’s life. You, Director.”

“I’d gathered, but… Credence was already gaining strength,” Percival said. “It was a matter of time before he regained his form.”

Scamander peered at him quizzically before his gaze flitted away. “I’d like to show you something,” he declared, and continued the walk back to the manor. Percival followed, bemusedly.

They went up to the Peony Room where Scamander’s room look pristine and untouched. Percival frowned, wondered if he utilized some sort of extreme housekeeping spells until Scamander popped open his battered old suitcase and began climbing down into it.

Percival grimaced. From the open lid of the luggage, a hand emerged and beckoned to him before disappearing inside. With some serious reservations, Percival followed down into its depths.

The menagerie was one of the better spellworked spaces Percival had ever seen—there did not seem to be walls at all, only carefully molded areas and illusory horizons that were perhaps not so illusory, he thought as he wandered past a good likeness of the Arizona desert and spotted shadowy figured winging closer and closer. There were more animals in this single luggage than the Central Park Zoo, and certainly more magical creatures than he’d seen ever. Even Ilvermorny with its small magizoology club never managed to house more than a few puffskeins, crups, and kneazles. Some of these creatures were as fairy tale to him as any other No-Maj. Percival was so distracted looking around that he nearly tripped over a herd of mooncalves that proceeded to burble and coo somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. They were adoring and furry and shed frightfully. Percival was glad he was dressed for gardening.

“Over here, Director,” Scamander called, and so Percival gingerly detached himself from the friendly little beasts and followed the sound of his voice until he turned the corner and found himself blinded by snow and his breath stolen by the sudden slap of cold. When his eyes adjusted, he found himself in an icy landscape, with the half-familiar liquid-black cloud of an Obscurus hovering above the snow. It was contained in a clear spell, but moved restlessly within its confines. Percival approached slowly, keeping a careful distance from it.

“You managed to contain one,” he said, not looking away.

“A young girl from Sudan manifested,” Scamander said, joining him. “She died, but her Obscurus was captured with a magical field.”

“What will you do with it?”

Scamander shrugged. “Excellent question, Director,” he said, sounding tired. “I thought Credence’s own experiences will allow us to come up with some solutions. It may be less helpful than I hoped though—Nyaring had no one else.”

As Percival watched the Obscurus shift endlessly, Scamander continued talking. “I believe you were a lightning rod of sorts for Credence, allowing for his Obscurus to concentrate on one target.”

“You think his Obscurus was… trying to use me as a host?” Percival said faintly.

Scamander made a thoughtful noise. “Perhaps initially,” he said. “But as Credence grew stronger, I suppose it became unnecessary. In any case, you mentioned seeing him more often—from shadows, to reflections, dreams.”

Percival nodded.

“But the thing is, no matter how… much stronger he grew, Credence at that point was simply, this.” Scamander gestured to the Obscurus. “From this point, he could grow no more solid. That next step of physical manifestation just doesn’t happen on its own. Until you spoke a spell of unity, that is,” he said. “I believe your spell worked because of its non-specific nature—if you’d been any more adept at narrowing your focus, I don’t think we’d be having this conversation today.

“You’re saying I brought Credence back into human form through my own incompetence,” Percival said.

Scamander looked taken aback. “Well,” he said diplomatically. “It was more effective than expected. And it gives me a strong lead in my research for Nyaring as well.”

Percival scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Does this mean Credence can, ah, backslide? Revert to,” he gestured.

“I don’t think so,” Scamander said. “There was probably the greatest possibility early on, but I think the more comfortable he grows with using magic, the possibility will become… miniscule. An Obscurus is what comes of magic being repressed for any reason. There would be no reason for it to appear in someone whose magical abilities are regularly used. Credence, I think, is safe.”

The words seemed to lift a boulder from Percival’s chest. He breathed deeply, startled at how strong the relief was. “Thank Merlin,” he murmured.

“Well done, Director,” Scamander said. “You saved him.”

“I owe him as much,” Percival said, finally turning away from the Obscurus. “This Albus Dumbledore. Does he know what he’s doing?”

Scamander didn’t seem thrown by the change of topic; he nodded as he led them back into the core of the menagerie. “He’s the best wizard I know,” he said. “He’s got a soft spot for the odd ones. Credence will be safe and taken care of.”

“Good,” Percival said quietly. “I’m glad.” After another moment, he added, “Thank you.”

Scamander’s gaze flickered to him briefly, and he flashed him a small, crooked smile. “Of course.”

Which was when Credence stuck his head down the suitcase, and announced in a very strained voice that the diricawl had just been spotted sprinting down the west wing corridor.

 

“Lotte, Bravo Routine,” Percival ordered as they scrambled hastily from Scamander’s suitcase.

“Wards up,” Lotte’s called back from the closest portrait, as a frisson of magic rolled through the house and lit up the outside walls briefly. “No entrance or exits allowed, magically assisted or not.”

“Wand up, Credence,” Percival reminded, glancing over. Credence grimaced and fumbled his wand from its holster.

They rounded the corner to the corridor and spotted the diricawl perched atop a side table halfway down the hall. It spotted them, gave a cheerful squawk and vanished in a flurry of feathers and magic, reappearing on its feet some five feet away.

“Digby, this is really unacceptable,” Scamander chided. “What have I told you about leaving the suitcase unattended?”

Digby clearly didn’t give a flip. It watched them with bright, beady eyes as Scamander approached. It took a tentative step backwards.

“Come here,” he urged softly, creeping forward slowly. Behind him, Percival eyed the bird dubiously

It took another step back and shrieked at them again. And then, it turned around and took off down the hall. Scamander cursed and legged it.

“What can we do?” Percival shouted as they chased the bird, who cleared the length of the room in the space of seconds, and then popped and reappeared half way back where they came.

“Try to corner Digby into a single room,” Scamander said as the three of them rushed into the west wing. The ensuing chase was a mad parade through the hallowed halls of Graves Manor. Digby was unable to pass the magical wards in place, but the manor itself was rich enough playground for it, and the diricawl seemed not so much in a panic as it was a force of gleeful chaos. Round the corners it popped, while the three men scrabbled for purchase on the loose carpeting behind. Scamander lost his footing and crashed against Percival with an ‘Oof!’, leaving Credence to lead the chase as the bird hustled towards the east wing by way of the parlor.

“I’ve got him,” Credence announced breathlessly, and instead of using his magic, lunged forward with his arms outstretched. The bird squawked and disappeared, reappearing immediately to rebound off if Credence’s shoulders and shoving him off balance before continuing its merry riot.

“Are you alright?” Percival asked, alarmed when he found Credence on the floor. He reached out and pulled Credence to his feet, then dropped his arm when he realized Credence was shaking. “Forgive me,” he stammered, but fell silent when he realized that Credence was laughing.

“I am fine,” he wheezed, clutching his sides. “It’s only, this bird!”

At that moment, the bird bolted, screaming past the open doorway, followed half a beat later by Scamander in hot pursuit.

Credence dropped his face into his hands, shoulders shaking, while Percival pressed his lips tight and stared hard at the ceiling.

“Let’s go,” Percival said finally, once he was sure his voice was steady. “We had better go stop them before they turn this place upside down.” Hesitantly, he offered Credence a smile, and was relieved when Credence smiled back.  They hastened back out to rejoin the chase.

After another few hectic turns, they finally were able to corner the diricawl in the portraits hall and trap it with a body-bind curse.

“They’re usually not so spirited; must be the new feed mixture,” Scamander noted absently as he tucked the frozen diricawl under his arm and trooped back to his suitcase. “I’m disappointed in you, Digby. Terrible show, and in front our host, too.”

“I thought that was marvelous,” Cecily called from her portrait, waving as they trailed back from where they came.

 

The last full day at the manor, Percival spent raising the stasis spells in the manor. The greenhouse was first, then the carriage house and the vestibule. Finally, he took himself up to the third floor of the manor and began setting the stasis spells and wards that would keep the manor in as pristine a condition as possible while it was closed up. It was late afternoon, when he finished with the ground floor—he’d closed the curtains over Cecily’s sad smile last, and was heading to the kitchen for a snack before he tackled the library, which would likely take the longest, if only because a hefty section of his Manhattan office was now intermixed with the library’s collections. He was coming up from the East Wing when he ran into Scamander and Credence who were halfway up the stairs

“Hullo, Director,” Scamander greeted, and continued without pause.

“Credence,” Percival said, stopping the young man on the stairs. “I wanted to speak with you about something.”

“Go on,” Scamander called from the top of the stairs. “I’m taking Pickett inside, he needs a bath. I keep telling him saline soil doesn’t sit well with him, but saplings will be saplings.”

Percival didn’t bother trying to parse that gobbledygook. Instead, he inclined his head downstairs in silent invitation.

The entrance hall, with the hunting mural now in full spring, was quiet and lit by the warm orange glow of late afternoon sunlight. Percival drew even with the main door and paused. “I wanted to say something I should have told you last week,” he said after a moment. Credence darted a glance at him. The easy camaraderie of yesterday had faded, leaving behind an uneasy, hollow tension.

“It’s alright, Percival,” Credence said quietly, but this was important, so Percival turned to him, forcing them to face each other.

“Here.” Percival motioned, and when Credence held out his palm, he dropped a thick iron key into his hand.

“What is this for?” Credence asked, a thin line of confusion between his brows. He glanced at Percival when Percival didn’t immediately answer.

“You are always welcome here,” Percival told him. “Always.”

Credence stared.

“I’ve added you to the wards,” Percival continued, opening the door. “Even if I’m not here, these doors will open for you. Here, see the lock? You will need to draw blood the first time you enter. You can do that now if you’d like—Credence?” he paused.

There was a peculiar lightness in the air; all around them, the hall furniture floated above the ground, but Credence was staring at Percival and didn’t seem to notice.

“I can come back?” Credence asked, as if hardly daring to believe it.

“Of course,” Percival replied. “I know that it feels like all these decisions are being made for you, but it won’t always be like this. Circumstances change.” He shrugged. “And the world outside of this city is vast and diverse. You may realize after going abroad that in fact, you never want to come back to New York-”

Credence gave a strangled laugh. “Of course I will!”

“Then you’ll always have a place to return to,” Percival said firmly. “Anywhere that is home to the Graves, you need only knock.” He smiled, and added quietly, “I, for one, will always be glad to see you, Credence.”

Credence stared at him with an unreadable expression long enough for Percival to wonder if he had overstepped. Perhaps it was just foolish sentimentality on his part—he had spent so long without having to care for another, maybe he just wasn’t a good judge of such matters anymore. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to say something, anything, when Credence took a step in and tilted his head forward until his forehead rested against Percival’s shoulder.

Percival froze.

“What…” he managed. His hands rose up and hovered uncertainly besides Credence’s upper arms; Credence’s head was a warm weight, his hair brushed Percival’s cheeks, and his breath was uneven. In the end, Percival tentatively placed his hands on Credence’s back.

“I will come back,” Credence swore. “Once I’ve learned everything and seen this world of yours, I’ll come back and find you. Is that alright?” He suddenly sounded uncertain, and Percival patted him fondly, heart suddenly full to bursting behind his old battered ribs. He had been around long enough that he considered every promise made half-broken from the start. It made life a little easier to manage when you relied less on the word of others. But this, this he wanted to believe.

“Yes,” Percival said truthfully. “Of course you can.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Epilogue_

The Aurors posted in front of his townhouse were out cold, crumpled in a heap just behind the front gate. One was bleeding sluggishly from a cut on her forehead. Percival flicked his wand, sending the silent alert back to headquarters that would light the office up red and white. Before him was the stoop of his 5th-ish Avenue townhouse. The front door hung open on its hinges and the hall behind it silent and waiting. Down at the very end was the flickering orange glow of the fireplace in his father’s office. Apprehension stiffened his spine and sharpened his senses.

Not an hour ago, Scamander and Credence were preparing for their trip to England—the menagerie had been properly stowed, with enough food and drink packed away to tide Credence over until they were well away at sea.

Percival had shaken Scamander’s hand with the sincere but firm wish for him to leave his animals behind next time he came to New York. When it was time to say goodbye to Credence though, Percival wished him well, and they shook hands.

“Good luck,” Percival told him.

“Thank you,” Credence replied, clear eyed and solemn. He released his hand and began climbing down the depths of Scamander’s suitcase.

“Credence,” Percival called. When Credence had looked up and caught his eyes, Percival had smiled. “Walk fearlessly.”

And now, Percival drew his wand up, took a deep breath, and did the same.

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- The Graves Manor is based on the Gothic Revival style [Lyndhurst Mansion](http://www.lyndhurst.org/) in Westchester, though a bit bigger.
> 
> \- Forgive any canon-conflicts-- it's been awhile since I read up on HP, and I took a lot of liberties with the magical Manhattan stuff (Sixth Borough, 5th-ish Ave, Irongate, the stuff about Squibs).
> 
> \- I don't promise sequels, but I do have some idea of what would happen next. If I never get around to writing it, please be assured it's a reasonably upbeat forecast.


End file.
